


The Scourge of Earth

by ZimprusNalune



Category: Worm - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, oh god what am i doing?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-28 02:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 92,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12595656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZimprusNalune/pseuds/ZimprusNalune
Summary: The story began with her cry for help, answered by nobody. It set her on a course where victory was never an option, where the only thing that could be done was to survive where all else perished. To take the best possible action in the worst conceivable circumstances. To become the one whose name struck fear beyond God in the hearts of men.When Taylor Hebert called for help, she was answered by nobody. It set her on a much different course, one she no longer walked alone.





	1. Simmer 1.1

_June 3rd, 2007_  
_Newport, Rhode Island_  
_10:27 AM_  

 

_Ridley_

  
“Siddown.”  
  
I blinked, looking between my Mom and Dad across the living room. She was standing with her lips pursed and her arms crossed. Dad was sitting with his hands folded and a grim look. Something was weird, but I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t usually see them both angry at the same time.  
  
“Siddown, please,” Mom said again, pointing to the chair next to me.  
  
I scrambled to get into it. She wasn’t using her normal voice, this was the ‘Or Else’ voice. Once I was sitting down I looked back to my parents, ready to hear what was going on.  
  
“Yah… fatha’ and I,” my mother began, her voice flat and matter-of-fact, “ah gettin’ a divorce.”  
  
My eyes widened. A divorce? I’d heard that word but... the definition didn’t come to me right away, so I tried to remember where I had first caught it. I was pretty sure that one of…  _yeah, that’s right, Richard, that one guy in class that nobody talked to, he said his parents were getting divorced earlier this year. That meant..._  
  
Wait, no. That couldn’t… I didn’t hear them right. Divorce… not  _my_ parents. That was something that happened to other kids. Not to me, not to my family. There was no way that could ever happen to me. My family was good, Mom and Dad didn’t hate each other. It wasn’t possible.  
  
“He’ll be gone tahmahrow,” she continued, ignoring what was running through my head. “From now on, you see him once a week. Sometimes weeken’s.”  
  
This... this was all just some horrible, twisted show, wasn’t it? I’d never heard Mom sound so… hard. So mean. This couldn’t be her, could it? And that man sitting, just someone who looked like my dad, right? This was aliens or something. Maybe God was testing me, that happened all the time in the Bible.  
  
“D-dad?” I asked, my voice trembling. His jaw was vibrating, like it did when he tried to talk about Gramma Chick.  
  
“Sorry buddy,” he mumbled. “I didn’t want it to come to this-”  
  
“Oh bullshit,” Mom snorted, turning to face him. “You think anyone believes that crap…”  
  
They started arguing back and forth, both of them getting angry now. I’d never seen this before. Tears I hadn't noticed before now started coming fast and hard. I thought the arguing kind of paused a few seconds later, but it only started again twice as hard and with waving arms and hands.  
  
I didn’t hear the words that were said, kind of caught the insults that were shouted, but I’d heard them all before. I was pretty sure I knew every swear word in English thanks to Dad. I used to think it was funny I knew them all so young. But it was starting to be obvious that I didn’t actually know them all.  
  
There wasn’t anything funny about that.

*** 

_June 17th, 2007_  
_Middlesex, Massachusetts_  
_11:28 AM_  
  
Wallet, check.  
  
Fishbowl, check.  
  
Awesome new cell phone, double check.  
  
I clicked my seatbelt in, holding Mr. Fishy’s home in midair in front of me. Dad’s truck always bumped and jostled around a lot, and the moving truck I was riding in now was quite a bit bigger than that one. It was an even bumpier ride, as I had already discovered on trip from home to Aunt Wendy and Uncle Richie’s.  
  
I put the fishbowl besides me, just for a moment, to wave out the window to them. They waved back, small smiles on their faces. I knew that they were putting on happy faces like I was, just pretending that this was a normal visit and everything. They hadn’t asked a word about why we had showed up with half our house in a truck, or why we needed to stay the night. Though, I almost wished they hadn’t allowed me and Mom to stay at their house, before we moved on to… well.  
  
But I kept smiling, just for another few moments. It was better to pretend that everything was okay. I heard that you could fool yourself into thinking things were okay, if you tried hard enough, long enough. Maybe if I was lucky, effort would make up for time.  
  
The truck rumbled deeply as the engine finally got going. I started for a moment, quickly grabbing Mr. Fishy and holding him over my lap once more. We both watched out the window as the truck drew away, onwards to the next… stop. I couldn’t call it what Mom said it was. It wasn’t that. It would never be that.  
  
I tried my best not to think about it. Better to just focus on keeping the admittedly heavy fishbowl from spilling too much water. Any water at all, if I could help it. It was better to just keep my eyes on Mr. Fishy in front of me than look outside and see land that was became more and more unfamiliar. 

***

_Brockton Bay, Massachusetts_  
_1:03 PM_  
  
I groaned to myself. Of all places to move into, we were moving to a  _city_.  
  
I hated cities with a burning passion. Being trapped in the middle of one wasn’t  _quite_ the worst thing I had ever experienced, but it was up there. Feeling the buildings press in from all sides, at the same time as they all looked ready to fall over... And if I could ignore that, the stink of countless vehicle exhaust and city bums immediately grabbed my attention, and kept it.  
  
That was ignoring that capes seemed to be attracted to cities. It was like strapping a bomb to a pile of rotting cattle to convince people not to get close. I tried to remember what Dad had said about the capes in Massachusetts. Something about ‘nazis, druggies, and slanties’. I couldn’t quite remember, he hated a  _lot_ of things about Massachusetts. But just thinking of him made me queasy, so I pushed even that little rhyme out of his head, before I could start remembering all of the shouting.  
  
Mom said we were moving through downtown Brockton Bay. To me, it was just another cityscape, the same cramped vista that everyone but me seemed to love so much. Watching the endless shades of gray move drag by was boring, but still better that watching my fish swim in circles. I switched between the two with faster as time went on, looking for anything that that was even a little interesting, that had just a tiny break from grey on gray.  
  
I looked at the sky, which was overcast and looking like it would open up at any minute. The temperature outside was warm, not too high, but the humidity was like a thick padding. I wondered if I tossed Mr. Fishy out of his bowl, if he would just start swimming and be on his way.  
  
Mom turned the truck around another seemingly random and meaningless corner. Suddenly, everything started to bloom with dull colors, looking just a little less dead than the last hour. It looked like we had finally gotten out of the city proper. I was pretty sure we were heading into Brockton Bay’s suburban areas along the sideroads.  
  
Up ahead, I caught the flickering of police and ambulance lights from a quarter mile up the road. I sat up at what may as well have been a fully-formed rainbow. My mother jerked on the brakes for a moment, causing a few objects in the back of the truck to shift and fall. A splash of bowl water drowned out whatever she muttered to herself.  
  
Curiosity got the better of me. I placed my fish’s bowl on the floor, huffing as a bit of water splashed a new stain on my shirt despite how gentle I was. I knew I wasn’t supposed to undo my seatbelt while someone was driving, but anything interesting would be welcome.  
  
“I said don’ look,” Mom spoke, her voice rising but sounding kind of shaky. Her arm shot up to block my face with that superhuman parental accuracy as I tried to peek over the passenger seat, and she kept it there no matter where I moved. When I sat back in my seat she didn’t even budge, just kept her arm up to stop me from seeing out the windshield.  
  
I sat back and sulked, but only for a moment. As the lights grew brighter, an idea struck me. Just once, I wanted to disobey my mother on something big. Not the ‘no snacks after six’, not ‘don’t climb on the table’, but something she  _really_ didn’t want me to do. Just to see what was happening with the police.  
  
“Young man,” she warned me, really irritated now, “get back in your seat, now.”  
  
I didn’t. The thought came and went that I would be in huge trouble for this, but it was ignored. I had to look, just this once. And just my luck, one of the police officers was waving for my mother to slow down. As the truck eventually came to a stop, I shifted to better view what was going on.  _Just this once._  
  
Two cars sat motionless and smoking on the street, badly mangled. One was red, in the opposite lane, one was a rusted white, half of it in each lane. It looked like they had hit each other from the front, the white one having caught the red at a strange angle. There was one skinny man, inside the white car, slumped over. Another was being handcuffed by an officer, but that one heavy-set and balding. That one had some blood splattered over his shirt and arm, and some bandages strapped to his head.  
  
I… had never seen anything like this. That was, I had never seen something like this in real life. Sure, I’d played games, gone around Quantum Disintegrating people and laughing as they turned to dust, or laughing even harder after a rebel trooper ragdolled through the air, but this... I never would have guessed real life was this  _messy_. I shivered in my seat, wondering how much worse it could be.  
  
Mom was talking with the police officer who stopped her. She said something about not having enough room for the truck. They talked a bit, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was trying to look into the other car, which I couldn’t see too well. There were a pair of paramedics flitting about like flies, with cutting tools and careful movements.  
  
The windshield on the red car was broken just above the driver’s seat. Someone’s mop of brown, bloodied hair was sticking out. The medics had cut and broken away the glass to safely remove the person trapped inside, guiding their head back through the windshield. As I watched, the paramedics brought the unconscious person out of the vehicle, being careful not to jostle them in any way.  
  
It took me a moment to realize it, but I could see that the person was a woman. She was probably the tallest, stickliest woman I had ever seen, but she was definitely female. A few moments later, the smell of the whole scene finally started to drift back into the truck cabin. Before I knew it all I could smell was burning rubber and metal, a faint prick of that blood-taste, and… something else nasty. I thought it might have been a melting battery, if batteries did that. But as I kept looking over the ruined car, I realized exactly what it was my mother didn't want me to see.  
  
I looked at the woman at exactly the wrong moment. It was the single longest moment of my life.  
  
Shattered glasses laid over brown eyes, gazing blankly out to the whole world, unfocused and unblinking. Her long, curly brown hair was half soaked in blood and… something else. The wet portion hung and clung limply down her face and neck, while the rest tried and failed to stay poofed up lively. At first, her mouth was only a bit, as if she was taking a deep breath, but as I watched her head rolled to one paramedic’s arm, causing it to open in an expression more like disbelief. The whole of her face was one of mild surprise turning into limp shock.  
  
The medics struggled with her awkward height as they moved. Words and orders I couldn’t focus on were barked, to one another, the driver of the ambulance, and even the woman, even though it was obvious she couldn’t respond. The moment she was free of her car, they loaded her onto a stretcher, into the ambulance, and took off, sirens wailing. I sat all the way back down inside the truck, my mother’s voice reaching but just sort of… rolling over me.  
  
It dawned on me that I had just watched someone die. Someone’s life had slipped away as I watched, unable to grasp what was happening. Blood was distinctly NOT where it was supposed to be, and it wasn’t inclined to go back where it should be. She even looked like… she couldn’t believe she was dying. The woman was no longer in front of me, but I could see every detail of her face.  
  
“I’m fine,” I said.  _Who am I talking to?_  
  
But just like that, my mother started moving the truck again. For all intents and purposes, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and we were on our way.

***

“A’ight chief,” my mother said, “hop out. We’ll figure out wheah yah stuff is goin’ to go while we wait fah Dave an’ Paul.”  
  
I nodded numbly, not really paying attention to her words. Dave, I dimly recalled, had been a neighbor and friend of my parents who had moved out a year or two ago. I had never met Paul. Supposedly the pair of them were going to help with moving in.  
  
Only, I really didn’t want to move into this new place. Sure, it was only a few minutes outside the city, with lots of healthy greens and some nice houses, but… I never thought I’d ever live in an  _apartment_.  
  
I mouthed the word to myself. It felt just as bad as I thought it would sound. Worse, if possible. Sure, the building didn’t look too run-down, but apartments were for poor people, weren’t they? My family wasn’t poor. We took vacations, spent time together, went out to eat.  
  
_No_ , I reminded myself. _Not anymore we don’t._  
  
Slowly, I climbed out of the cabin, leaving Mr. Fishy’s slightly empty bowl on the seat. I blinked and took in the apartment building with fresh eyes. Two floors, clear lines down the middle, there were probably four apartments in total. The building had a coat of yellowish paint that could have been faded, or it could have been one of those weird Easter colors, I wasn’t sure. A porch and a balcony for each division were painted in white, chipped in places, having seen better days. Last, a gravel driveway ran behind the building itself, and the hints of a wannabe back yard could be seen. There was no front yard to speak of, more like a couple strips of grass divided by the walkway and sidewalk.  
  
I pursed my lips and took a deep breath through my nose. Going back wasn’t an option, either to the truck or what he considered to be home. Staying rooted in place wasn’t one, either, that would just get Mom irritated at me being ‘stubbuhn’. The only thing I could do was move forward.  
  
Just move forward, one day at a time. Things wouldn’t be okay, not for a long while, but there was little choice in the matter. I had to look for the bright spots, and hope those were enough to make up for everything else.  
  
And maybe… maybe I could learn to be okay.


	2. Simmer 1.2

_September 1st, 2008_  
_Brockton Bay_  
_7:25 AM_

_Taylor_

Dad’s truck rumbled along quietly towards Winslow High School. The two of us weren’t speaking much, but it was a comfortable silence. The kind you had when nobody wanted or needed to say anything.

I had only been back from nature camp for a few days, long enough to do some supply shopping and get ready for school, but not much else. That all my clothes still fit me meant I hadn’t grown too much over the summer, which was good because we really couldn’t afford to buy me a whole new wardrobe. Maybe we could afford a pre-owned wardrobe. Dad and I joked about that sometimes, that we could afford anything on its second time around.

I was kicking myself for not thinking to call Emma before school started, just to reconnect after the summer break. But at least I would see her soon, hopefully before the day was over. My summer had been pretty enjoyable, save for a pair of bee stings, and I was curious if Emma got around to doing anything cool. If not, well, we still had to figure out who was staying over whose house this weekend.

“Sure you got everything you need?” Dad asked, breaking the quiet. “If you forgot anything, I can stop at home real quick for it.”

“I’m sure,” I replied, nudging my backpack with my foot. I wondered if all my schoolbooks would fit in it. There wasn’t much room left, what with all my supplies packed in there. “Besides, don’t you have work today?”

He smiled and winked at me. “Yeah, but I’ve got way more days of work than you have school, so I think I can take a few minutes to make sure it goes right for you.” I smiled back at him for a moment before looking out the window.

Up the road I could start to see the long line of cars that pinpointed Winslow’s drop-off point. Right now it was packed full of cars, both coming and going. Traffic on the whole street started to slow down, and soon enough we were in line with all the other families waiting to send their kids off to school. I scanned the crowd to try and spot any familiar faces, but they were all too far away to make anything out.

“Emma will be there,” Dad assured me. “Have some patience, alright? Just because you went off to camp doesn’t mean you two are any less joined at the hip.” I didn’t say anything in response, settling for a noncommittal hum and looking down at myself.

I had tried to pick out the best outfit I could for the day, deciding on a pair of loose fitting jeans, semi-worn sneakers that I had left home instead of taking to camp, and lastly, one of Mom’s old sweaters that was colored a deep, if faded, purple. It was a reminder, mostly to me, but now that I thought about it, it might be one for Dad too. Even if Mom wasn’t here in body, she was here in spirit. Our whole family could be here for this.

As we pulled up to the front of the school, I tried to think of something to say to him. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but apparently he didn’t notice because he turned to me with a small smile on his face, like nothing was wrong. I knew he was faking it though, his eyes had been catching on Mom’s sweater since we left the house. Neither of us said anything for a few moments.

Dad spoke first. “Have a good day, Taylor,” he said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Just keep an open mind, and these’ll be some of your best years.”

I nodded gently, placing my hand on his. “Okay.” I paused. “After today… when you get home, can we…?”

Dad bit his lip. He knew what was going to come next. I kinda didn’t want to ask, but I did want to see Mom. Just to tell her how everything went today. I was wearing her sweater, after all, she deserved to hear about it. I hadn’t seen her in almost three months, and I was willing to bet he hadn’t either.

Eventually, he bowed his head and looked away. “We’ll see,” he said simply.

That was as good of a response as I was ever going to get, so without waiting any longer I grabbed my backpack and hopped out of the truck. I waved goodbye to Dad, which was returned halfheartedly as he pulled out around other parents still in the midst of dropping their kids off. Soon he was out of sight, and I blinked before realizing I was still standing on the sidewalk.

Good job, Taylor, I thought to myself. Watching your Dad go like you’re still in preschool. I shook my head and turned around , heading up the steps into Winslow itself.

***

Fifteen minutes or so later found me in my new homeroom. The homeroom teachers had given a whole spiel about how everyone was going to get to know one another over the next four years, how great that was going to be, and how everyone was going to be one happy family. Pretty much everyone in the room chuckled, and there were more than a few glares going around.

Schedules were passed out to everyone, and the teachers then wrote wrote out a different, much weirder schedule on the board that they said would be used for the next two days, as students circulated to all their classes and met all their teachers.

Being a freshman, I didn’t have any real choice in what my schedule was. That said, it wasn’t anything too bad, just a bunch of normal classes like English, Math, Gym, and the like. The Computer Literacy class caught my eye as a strange one, but I guessed it would just be learning to use basic office programs or something like that.

All in all, it didn’t sound too bad to start. I would at least have time to get all my books and such in order. And maybe, if I didn’t have her in any of my classes, I would be able to find Emma during lunch. An hour could be a long time, after all.

Just as I was reaching for my bag, I felt something hit the back of my head. Or rather, it hit my hair, just hard enough to make me feel it, but soft enough that I might have missed it if I was distracted. I reached back, my fingers running through my hair to eventually come across something wet and sticky.

The moment I realized what it was, I jumped out of my seat with a very dignified “Eep!” I ran my hands through my hair, cursing its natural curliness and trying my best not be ill as I saw the spitball drop to the floor.

A few chuckles sounded off as I stood next to my desk, panting from the sudden, and gross, shock. One of the teachers, Mr. Stevens, looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Something the matter, Ms. Hebert?”

I took another few breaths before responding. “Spitball,” I said, barely loud enough to be heard. I could feel my face flushing as everyone looked at me, so I sat back down and tried to shrink into my desk.

Mr. Stevens shook his head. “Of course. Does anyone want to admit guilt to this?” He looked around the room. A few kids were still giggling, but obviously nobody raised their hand. “Very well,” he continued. “I’ll merely remind you all that neither bullying nor childishness is tolerated at Winslow. And Ms. Hebert? It’s only a spitball. Please react accordingly, next time.”

I nodded meekly. I was just making a fool of myself all over the place.

***

_11:29 AM_

Luckily, nothing else happened between the morning and lunch that caused me to embarrass myself. Unluckily, there was literally nothing to do in that period either, so I occupied myself with doodling in one of my notebooks. It occurred to me that I should probably have gotten a dedicated drawing pad. Maybe I can get one this weekend, I thought, wondering if there was enough spare change lying around.

There was a mixed sigh as the lunch bell rang, signaling both the end of the upperclassmen assembly and liberation from the increasingly dull homeroom session for the rest of us. I waited for most of the others to file out of the room before I bothered to stand up. No sense getting caught in a student traffic jam.

The moment I was out the homeroom door, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and, to my delight, found my best friend in the whole world standing there.

“Ems!” A wide smile broke out across my face and I pulled the redhead in for a hug. I think I trapped her arms by her sides in my excitement, because she didn’t immediately reply with the same.

“Hey Taylor,” she said, her smile much more contained. “Glad to see you’re back from camp. Can you, you know…?”

“Oh, sorry.” Yeah, I had her trapped. I pulled back and beamed at her. “I’m really happy to see you again. I’m sorry I didn’t call you before school started, but…”

Emma waved her hand and gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s fine. I’m really happy to see you too.” She paused and looked around at the veritable horde of students passing around us. “I’ve got to freshen up before lunch,” she said, rummaging through her purse. “Care to come along?”

I accepted without a second thought, and soon Emma was guiding us through the halls towards what I hoped was a clean bathroom. As we walked, we exchanged questions and answers about our summer. Emma was kind of reserved, but I chalked that up to her just being more socially graceful than me.

Someone, a dark skinned, athletic looking girl, was leaning against the wall outside the girl’s bathroom, glaring at everyone who passed by. She took special attention to Emma and I as we walked by her. I had to suppress a shiver as we did, the way she was looking at us, at me, like she was looking through rather than at people, just didn’t sit right. Just my luck then, that she followed us in.

A hand clasped my shoulder, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach.

“Taylor, meet Sophia,” Emma’s voice sounded off, as the other girl pushed me hard enough to send me stumbling to the other side of the bathroom.

I turned around to see the girl, who I was guessing was Sophia, standing between me and the door, arms crossed and a heavy frown on her features. Emma was next to her, inspecting her nails like nothing was wrong. There was even a tiny smile on her face.

“Ems, what-” I started, but was cut off by one of the stalls bursting open, and a spray of water hit me in the face.

“And,” someone who was supposed to be my best friend continued, “Madison.”

A small, petite girl walked out of the stall, tossing a mostly empty water bottle at me to drench my sweater further, and my pants thoroughly. She looked familiar, and somewhere in my head a lightbulb went off, pegging her as someone from my homeroom. I stood in shock, dripping wet and staring dumbly at the three before me.

“What’s wrong, Tails?” Emma asked, looking at me like she had noticed me for the first time that day. “You’re soaked. You want to call your dad for a change of clothes? Or do you think he might be busy? Driving, maybe?”

I blinked stupidly as she spoke. Cell phones, phones in general, neither I nor Dad really used them since Mom… Mom’s accident. Calling while driving wasn't even something that crossed our minds anymore. There was a decent chance, I thought, that Dad didn't even have a cordless phone at work. Emma knew tha-

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, placing a hand over her mouth in mock apology. “Your family doesn’t use phones, do you? No, you’re too backwards for that.”

I was at a loss for words. Emma knew. She knew what happened. Why was she being so callous about it? What made her hate me so much that she would drag that up? Why was she-

“After all, your mom couldn’t even drive a car right.”

Every thought I had just stopped.

I didn’t move from the spot I was standing in. I didn’t think, didn’t flinch, I didn’t budge. I stood as water dripped down, and what started as just a couple heavily drenched spots turned into a full-body soak. Eventually, I guess they got bored of waiting for me to do something, because Sophia came up to me and pushed me again.

I completely fell down this time, whacking my head against the wall and sliding down limply. My sweater snagged on something on the wall, I couldn’t see what. I watched as Emma and her two new friends laughed, snickered, or glared at me. It didn’t last long, and they were out the door before I could realized they were gone.

It took me a while to realize they were gone, how long I had no idea. But when I did, it was like a bolt of lightning struck me, and my thoughts came back a mile a minute. Emma wasn’t friendly anymore. She wasn’t my friend anymore. She’d found two new friends. And I was willing to bet it was all because I had left for nature camp. Because I wanted to get away for a few months. Because I had left.

I tried to stand up, but I was jerked back down by a loud tearing sound. I turned to see my mother’s sweater sporting a new, long rip on the sleeve. The sleeve, which had caught on an old, rusted and chipped water pipe. My eyes watered as everything that had just happened fully hit me.

Everything was going wrong. So wrong.

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang, loud and clear.

***

_1:43 PM_

Computer Literacy was my last class of the day, and by then I was trudging more than walking. The water soaking me through had dried, although there was no fixing my sweater, not anytime soon. I had sat and listened through the rest of my classes, and my head was just starting to clear. Still, the fact that Emma no longer wanted anything to do with me, it rang in my head over and over.

The computer lab was set up like a large ‘U’, with the teacher’s desk in the middle and able to see every student’s monitor. There were about 20 stations set up, each with a large CRT monitor and a bulky desktop computer. I noticed that most of the stations were filled, leaving only one left. Without much choice, I sat down in between two other students who were polar opposites of one another. The one to my left was a large, black guy with shoulder-length dreads who looked like he belonged on a professional football team, the other being a shorter, skinny, pale boy with an almost comical bowlcut.

The teacher walked in shortly after I did, and immediately began speaking. I listened halfheartedly for a while, until I heard a squeaky voice pipe up next to me.

“Hey. Hey.”

I flinched unconsciously from a pat on the shoulder and turned to face the pale boy.

“Hey,” he said again, smiling a little too widely. He held out a hand. “My name’s Greg, what’s yours?”

I shook the offered hand weakly, immediately regretting it as I felt his clammy skin. He clasped my hand a little tighter than I was sure was normal, and I shivered despite myself.

“Taylor,” I said weakly.

“Taylor, huh?” Greg said, smiling even more widely. “That’s a pretty name, if you don’t mind me saying.”

I do actually, I thought, now thoroughly creeped out by this guy. Thankfully, it seemed the other one had heard enough, as he spoke up.

“Hey, shut up,” he muttered, glaring at Greg more than me. “Trying to listen.”

Those words alone wouldn’t have been too intimidating, but considering who they were coming from, Greg was more than willing to listen. With a little gulp and a big nod, he turned back to the teacher, leaving me alone and letting me ignore him as best I could.

“-but for now, I want each of you to write a short, one-thousand word essay on what your summers were like,” the teacher finished. I totally forgot was his name was. Loud groans came up around the classroom, to which he merely rolled his eyes and added, “And if you all keep complaining, it’ll be due Wednesday instead of Friday. I’ll be in this lab for one hour after school ends, and Ms. Knott will be in the other for the same time. I expect-”

The bell signaling the end of the period, and school in general, rang loudly as he was finishing his sentence. He only sighed as the noise of students rising out of their seats and flooding out through the door and hallway drowned out whatever he was trying to say.

Behind me I heard another, softer sigh. “Just great… The last thing I want to write about is this summer.”

I frowned. My problem wasn’t what happened during the summer. Summer was fine. It was what came after that was the problem.

***

 _Brockton Bay General Hospital_  
_7:52 PM_

I never got used to the smell of the hospital, no matter how many times I came. Four dozen times, at least. Give or take. The nurses were starting to know me just by my face, now. I even got a small wave as I passed by the front desk.

I rode the elevator to the second floor. I knew the directions by heart now. Left, right, left, right, straight through two intersections, and my destination was on my left. Room 31B. I could be a hospital GPS, I joked to myself as I checked the nameplate. There was just one name, this time. It was faded from being in place for so long, but it was still legible.

I walked into the room, feeling my heart break like it did every time I came here.

My mother laid unmoving in her bed, hooked up to a half-dozen machines that either beeped, booped, or showed some meaningless graph and numbers. The first time I had been here, she was monitored constantly by a nurse, and a doctor had stopped in every hour. Now, over a year later, she got far less attention from everyone but me and…

Well… Dad was trying his best, I liked to think.

People had sent flowers and cards when they first heard about the accident. Everyone thought she would wake up within a week or so. Maybe there would be some rehab, maybe she would have some condition that lasted for the rest of her life, but everyone, me included, thought things would be back to normal in no more than a month.

We were all so wrong.

The doctors had called it ‘persistent vegetative state’. They emphasized the first word, saying there was still a chance of recovery. I did a bit of research that stopped pretty quickly when I figured out what they were actually saying.

I didn’t want to think of her as dead. She was still breathing. There was brain activity. She was still cared for. She wasn’t dead. If she was, Dad would have pulled the plug. The doctors might have even done it. Panacea, a local cape who was known for healing, had come in, said she wasn’t. But Mom was… no.

Just no.

So, since she wasn’t dead, that meant she still needed people to keep her company. Maybe I was a bit selfish for thinking I should be the person to do that. A little bit more selfish for thinking I needed her to listen to me. And maybe, maybe I shouldn’t have been able to get to this room with my eyes closed, after months without doing it. I almost wanted to try that, just to see if I could.

So, being just a little selfish right then and there, I sat down in the chair next to the bed, letting the beeps of the machines keep going for a little while before I started talking over them.

“Hey Mom,” I said softly, trying to lock eyes with her beyond her closed eyelids. “It’s me. It’s Taylor. I… know we haven’t… that is, I haven’t been by in a while. I was away at nature camp.”

I paused.

“You remember? I told you about it. It’s this little place down in Connecticut…”


	3. Simmer 1.3

_October 23rd, 2009_  
Brockton Bay  
12:37 PM

_Taylor_

I’d decided that I didn’t like perfume.  
  
Now, it wasn’t because I didn’t like the way most perfume smelled. Most scents were okay, if you used just a bit. It wasn’t because it was an obviously artificial smell. The weird tingling you got in your nose whenever you smelled it didn’t bother me enough to matter. And it most  _definitely_ wasn’t because I was trying not to choke on one of Madison’s overapplied favorites was hanging around in the stale bathroom air, like ‘Baby’s First Gas Weapon’.  
  
I’d realized the whole chain of events about a month or so ago. It was pretty simple, honestly. The basic idea was that if you took two popular things and stuck them together, you’d get something even more popular, like Oreos. Teenagers liked sugary, fruity drinks. Girls, in order to attract guys, would like to smell like other things they liked. That was the whole point of perfume, after all. So, the perfume companies would make one that smelled like soda. Companies make money, girls get the boys, boys get to smell something nice, everyone wins.  
  
Everyone except for the girl who was trapped in a bathroom stall smelling of… I think this time it was coffee and lemonade.  
  
So yeah. I didn’t like perfume because I knew that, one day, there would be a perfume dedicated to reminding me of every single time something like this had happened. And everyone would  _love_ it.  
  
This was the second time this week. I would say that I was getting used to it, but that would be lying, badly. Emma’s barbs and jabs had only worn down a bit, so instead of feeling a knife in my chest and blanking out for an hour, it felt like a punch to the gut and I only stopped for a moment or two. So it was less that I was getting used to things, and more going from punches with brass knuckles to punches with bare fists.  
  
Actually, I thought today was even better than that. Today, I didn’t stop at all, I had just blinked a few times and waited for the punches, both physical and emotional, to fade away. Before I knew it I was up and moving again, stopping at my locker to grab my spare shirt. This time it was just a grey tee with the Dockworker’s Association logo on the back. It was one of my Dad’s shirts that I had nabbed it from the dirty laundry pile, so hopefully he wouldn’t notice it was gone.  
  
I stopped at a different bathroom to change my shirt. Lightning rarely struck twice, but I never liked to take chances with the Trio, my name for the collective of Emma, Madison, and Sophia. I always made sure not to go back to the same place they ambushed me. I was thinking of rotating which bathroom I used, but dismissed that idea as they would probably figure out the schedule no matter what I did.  
  
Off went one shirt, followed by a few paper towels to soak up any juice left behind. On went the other shirt, and a few sprays from the bottle of air freshener I borrowed from home. A quick glance in the mirror let me see most of my hair flattened and stuck together, but besides running my hands through it a few times, there wasn’t much I could do about that now.  
  
Almost on cue, the bell rang loud and clear. Now all I had to do was survive gym class.

***

Sophia glared pointedly at me, as she always did, the moment I entered the girl’s locker room. Well, I say ‘locker room’, but really they were closer to cubbies than actual lockers. No built-in locks, you either brought your own and only used it during your gym period, or you took the risk that someone would take your stuff while you weren’t looking. That is, if your stuff even fit inside in the first place.  
  
I was lucky in that sense. I had nothing that anyone would want, and made sure things stayed that way every time I grabbed my gym bag. Packed inside were the clothes I needed, and nothing more. There was only one time I had forgotten to remove everything of value, and I had come back to find my locker wide open, my clothes all over the floor and the few dollars I had missing. I swear Winslow had students that were part bloodhound, trained to sniff out money. Or maybe there was a parahuman who did the same thing, who knew?  
  
I was lucky again today, it seemed. Sophia’s only action was to shove her way past me as she left the locker room. Sure, being knocked against a solid metal face hurt a little, and sure I almost cut my side on an open locker door, but… I didn’t. Just a matter of not leaving an opening. It didn’t matter what they said, if I ignored them enough, it would stop. Or fizzle out, I guess, that seemed to be closer to the truth. I honestly didn’t know.  
  
The gym teacher went by ‘Coach P’ among the athletes, and eventually by everyone else. As students steadily trickled into the gym, he was quick to remind us that today was special, in celebration for… something, I didn’t really pay attention. Something to do with his son, maybe a birthday or something. Instead of making the whole class do one activity, we all had a choice between running laps on the track, or playing soccer. Of course, if I looked around I had a pretty good chance for the first person I saw to be part of either the boy’s soccer team, or the track team. So, less out of the goodness of his heart, more about keeping the sports teams in shape.  
  
Sure enough, a few moments later, the class was split between the soccer team and pretty much everyone else. Most people who chose to do laps would just walk them. I didn’t blame them, I’d do the same if I had any friends to just talk with for the period. But since I didn’t, and since I was in a not-too-terrible mood, so I decided on a whim I would try and actually run.  
  
What could go wrong, right?

***

One and a half laps, fifteen minutes, one sprained ankle, and one long, painful walk were my total reward for daring to even think those words.  
  
In hindsight, I was stupid for thinking that Sophia would back off in the same way Emma or Madison had. Her methods of tormenting me didn’t require creativity or setup. A forced trip and a sprained ankle would hurt today, might hurt more tomorrow, and would keep hurting for a while. It would only stop hurting once it was healed, and then Sophia would decide that it would be time for ‘clumsy’ Taylor yet again.  
  
As it turned out, quite a few things could go wrong.  
  
So I sat in the nurse’s office, with an icepack sloppily wrapped around my right ankle, while the nurse herself was out of the office for some reason or another. I had replayed the events over in my head a few times, and as much as I wished otherwise there was nothing obvious about the way Sophia had tripped me. I felt her foot connect with mine the instant before I lost my balance, but that was too easily chalked up to being an accident. She wasn’t stupid, she knew to mess with me  _just_ right so things looked like I had fallen all by myself. She knew openings I couldn't even think of. I doubted I would have another ‘tripping accident’ any time soon, though, if only to keep me off balance.  
  
But… maybe I wouldn’t have to wait for another one.  
  
Maybe now was the time to consider showing my notebook to someone. This wasn’t just a notebook of notes, nor was it something I took to school with me. This was something I kept at home, and it was slowly filled out as the Trio kept up their bullying campaign. It wasn’t an exhaustive list of everything they had done, since I had only started tracking what happened a few months  _after_ I had started high school, but I did have at least one entry for every day I had spent at Winslow. Maybe it was just a line with an activity and a date, or maybe it bordered on a news article, but I kept updating it every day regardless. If I skipped even once, that would just make it easier to skip the next day, and the next, and so forth. Everyone else may be apathetic to what was going on, but as today had shown me, copying that attitude myself wouldn’t solve anything.  
  
There wasn’t any guarantee that what I wanted to happen  _would_ happen. What I wanted was to see Emma, Madison and Sophia expelled. That was what I  _wanted_. I never wanted them to bother me or anyone else ever again. Maybe that was reaching, just a bit. But I didn’t think a month or two of suspension was too much to ask. Maybe even too little, if I was being optimistic.  
  
I looked down at my ankle, wincing as the very same chill that numbed the pain started to hurt as well.  
  
If I wanted this to stop, actually stop once and for all, I would have to go through with telling someone what was going on. And not just anyone, either. Letting a teacher here and there know who had gotten spitballs in my hair, or who was dumping pencil shavings in my bag was all well and good, but ultimately nothing was happening to actually stop it. I needed to take decisive action.  
  
The thought came to me that Emma’s dad, Alan, did this kind of thing for a living. I knew what he would say to do, he’d done it once before…  _before_. I would take my notebook, write up a few more notes, and make a full statement to one of the assistant principals on Monday. Even better, maybe I could talk to Principal Blackwell herself.  
  
That’s how I would spend my weekend. Arranging, planning, preparing. And with any luck, come Monday, I could end this bullying in one fell swoop with an ankle just injured enough to push my case. Dad would ask some questions, maybe I could get him to back me up on this… actually, it was probably better to hold off on that. Keep the big guns in reserve.  
  
_Yeah. That’s what I’ll do._

***

_October 25th, 2009  
Brockton Bay  
6:13 PM_  
  
I should have worn a rut in my floor from all the nervous pacing I was doing. It didn’t help that my ankle protested every time I tried to placed my weight on it, but I was too wound up to sit still. Sitting down at my cramped little desk felt like I was trying to go back to normal, pretend everything was okay. Lying on my bed did nothing but tense the imaginary coil in my spine further.  
  
I glanced at the bullying notebook that laid on my desk, open to the most recent entry. The few loose pages of lined paper in my hand were filled with a script, either mine or what I thought could be someone else’s. It wasn’t cohesive yet, and I was running low on time, but it was something. My ankle was currently in one of those sock-like braces, clear as day to anyone that I was injured. If the principal didn’t believe that it had happened in school, the nurse would be my witness.  
  
I had a record, I had an argument, and I had evidence. And those three things came together to give me a  _case_.  
  
Despite everything Emma had done, was doing, it was thanks to her that I had the inspiration to deal with her and her new friends once and for all. Sure, she acted like I was scum of the Earth now. But it was our past friendship that allowed me to even have this idea in the first place. And well, maybe if she didn’t want me to use that friendship against her, she shouldn’t have broken it, then used my mother against me.  
  
_Speaking of which._  
  
“Dad?” I called out and down the stairs, hoping he could hear me in the kitchen. When no response came after a few, long seconds, I bit my lip and left my room, walking halfway down the stairs before I called out again. “Are we still going to see Mom tonight?” Again, I heard nothing in reply. I walked down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen, just a bit worried.  
  
Dad was standing in front of the stove, a pot of water boiling rapidly and partially obscuring his face with cloud of steam. His hands were gripping the counter on either side of him, hard enough that they were clearly white-knuckled. He wasn’t moving at all, just staring into the pot like it was going to answer for him. I took a step towards him… and stopped.  
  
He had been getting better about this. I swore he had. Like me and the bullies, he stopped doing... this. He stopped locking up whenever he was faced with it, with seeing Mom. That’s what had been happening. For him to freeze now, looking like a deer in the headlights…  
  
I had decided that I wouldn’t ask my dad to come with me tomorrow. Seeing him like this only reinforced that decision. In fact, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to even mention it, in order to prevent him from either confronting the school by himself, or just stop functioning altogether.  
  
That was it. There was nothing more to say, or think. I turned around, and quietly went back up to my room.

***

_October 26th, 2009  
Brockton Bay  
9:32 AM_  
  
Usually I eyed the clock as a way of measuring time until the end of my torment. That was pretty much what was happening today. But instead of knowing that things would simply continue on tomorrow, the next day, and the next day after that, I was holding on to the hope that my appointment after school with Principal Blackwell would have a much more permanent impact on my problems.  
  
One of those ‘problems’ decided now was a good time to ‘stumble’ and ‘accidentally’ spill fruit juice all over my desk, and my classwork.  
  
“Why do you always have to do that!?” Madison all but screeched, looking at me like I was another one of Winslow’s many low-lives. Maybe I was, by this point, but they had...  
  
_No_ , I stopped myself. _I literally cannot afford to think like that._  If I started thinking that way, my plan would fall apart before I could blink. I had no idea where that thought had come from, but I immediately shoved it to the back of my head and locked it in a cramped little box.  
  
Instead of saying anything to Madison, I just sat and stared at the dripping… cherry, strawberry?  _Hmm, yeah, that’s definitely cherry-smelling…_ dripping juice all over my work, desk, and was slowly finding its way onto my pants. I sighed internally.  _Good thing I wore dark jeans today. With any luck nobody will even notice._  
  
I stared at the ruined notes I had taken for the class as Ms. Kelvin, the old, skin-and-bones teacher, struggled to rise out of her chair. They wouldn’t be properly replaced, because she taught from a book several years ahead of the ones the students were given, and nobody with any sense would dare be seen helping me. Ms. Kelvin neither knew nor cared about this, instead simply making a beeline towards me, her voice rising all the while. I usually flushed red as a tomato when someone was yelling at me, but in this particular case I barely felt warmth touch my cheeks.  
  
Instead of being embarrassed for being the center of attention once again, being the subject of torment by people who didn’t know me and hated me anyway, I just sat there and tried to let it all wash over me. It worked... less than I hoped. No matter how much I tried, some of the whispers and jeers just slipped right into my head.  
  
_“Is that why they always give her a hard time?”_  
  
“Guess you have to fight bitch with more bitch.”  
  
“Why can’t she mind her own business?”  
  
“Big kid picking on the little kid, never changes.”  
  
“Is she that mean or just that clumsy?”  
  
I shut my eyes tight. Just a few more hours. A few more hours, and it would all be over.

***

_12:29 PM_  
  
You ever have one of those moments where a realization hits you out of nowhere? You’re just sitting around, minding your own business, and suddenly your brain whacks you with one big ‘eureka’. Might be a good thing, but in this case it was an incredibly bad thing. More in the ‘heads up’ sense than the ‘oh crap’ sense, but bad all the same.  
  
Today’s bullying extravaganza hadn’t been too different from every other day, with one exception. The Trio’s actions were just… off. They had been acting like  _they_ were the ones being targeted. It hadn’t seemed too strange at first, kind of like a weird sort of sarcasm. The thing was, they had kept at it all day. Madison's faked tripping earlier ended with her looking like the victim. Sophia and I had crossed in the hall a few times, where she shoved me but did it so it looked like I had tried and failed to shove  _her_. Emma had confronted me as I entered the lunch hall, telling  _me_ to stop bullying her friends, as if she didn’t know the truth of things.  
  
My ‘eureka’ moment?  
  
I nearly choked on my PBJ as I realized that every time I had been bullied over the course of the day, it was set up  _so I looked like the bully_.  
  
That didn’t bode well for meeting Blackwell after school.  
  
Every incident today also had lots of witnesses. Ms. Kelvin in history, the two monitors in the lunch hall, other students and maybe even Blackwell herself in the hallway. It was almost like Emma knew that today I was coming forth about everything, and decided on one big sabotage campaign.  
  
The worst part was that I could totally see her planning this in advance. I may not know her anymore, but she probably still knew me. Knew me just enough to know when my breaking point was, and set things up to provoke in all the right ways. To make it look like  _I_ was the one at fault.  
  
My ankle gave a dull throb, which I suspected was just to spite me. And yeah, she could totally spin  _that_ too.  
  
I sank lower in my seat, hands covering my face. If my life was a cartoon, I would’ve bet anything that a little mushroom cloud would’ve just exploded over my head.

***

_2:35 PM_  
  
A couple hours later found me standing in front of the main office, stuck in a constant ‘should I/shouldn’t’ I loop. I was suddenly lacking in the courage I thought I had worked up over the course of the past few months. Well… the past few days, really. I would have liked to say the past year, but I couldn’t even pretend I had any thoughts of getting back at my tormentors for most of it.  
  
_No_ , I reminded myself, _this isn’t getting back. This is justice._  
  
Justice. Just like the old comics that were somewhere in the basement. The hero has some trouble now and then, and it may take a while, but the bad guys always get what they deserve. That’s what justice is. I had been dealing with this far too long, and it was time for justice to shine through.  
  
Okay, so maybe that sounded a little corny. But my point still stood. I had to walk through this door in front of me. I just had to. If I didn’t, all those notes, all that time spent this weekend building up a case, it would all be for nothing. More than that, all the torment I had put up with would amount to nothing. And I wasn’t willing to let that happen.  
  
So I entered the office, the receptionist/secretary/whatever looked at me with a bored expression, and asked, “Ms. Hay-burnt?”  
  
I was about to say… I don’t know, something, but the way the woman mangled my name so completely just derailed my train of thought. Actually, it might have been better to say the tracks exploded, sent the train flying fifty feet in the air, and then through  _another_ train that was passing above it.  
  
I was standing still with my mouth open long enough to get both a raised eyebrow and an annoyed look. Usually it was one or the other, but this time I got both. Two’fer, as Dad would say.  
  
I shook my head and walked up to the front desk. “It’s… Hebert,” I said, much more quietly than I meant to. I squelched the urge wince at my own awkwardness, knowing I was not helping myself by either correcting the front-desk-person, or by sounding like a scared mouse.  
  
The receptionist, who conveniently had her nameplate facing  _inward_ so only she could see it, sniffed and typed something on the keyboard without looking at the monitor. “Principal Blackwell will see you now,” she said dismissively, now actually looking to the monitor, presumably so she didn’t have to keep looking at another student.  
  
I mumbled something I hoped sounded like thanks, and made my to the back of the room, which connected to Blackwell’s office. The main office was mostly empty, with only the front receptionist and one other secretary standing at the photocopier. I guess the end of the school day really did mean the end of the faculty’s day, too.  
  
The door to Principal Blackwell’s office was wide open. She was sitting at her desk, a large, wooden, official-looking one that’s seen better days, just inside the doorway. She didn’t seem to be waiting for me, just busying herself with some paperwork or another that would get done whether or not I actually showed up for the meeting. I knocked on the door’s window, feeling my nervousness ratchet up a notch with each contact of my knuckles on the glass.  
  
Blackwell didn’t even look up. “Come in, Ms. Hay-burnt.”  _God damn it_ , of course she got it wrong too. “We’ve been waiting for you.”  
  
I blinked. ‘We’?  
  
I didn’t even know who might be here. Another teacher, who decided to step up at last? One of the vice principals? Or maybe… maybe my Dad? Maybe some parental intuition tipped him off? I thought he had dropped that ball a long time ago, but maybe…  
  
_Click-click-click_ , went the ratchet in my head, as I walked into the office.  
  
My heart dropped into my stomach. No, lower than that. My foot, maybe.  
  
Four other people were present in the office, two sitting in chairs, and two standing with crossed arms. Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, Sophia Hess, and one teacher I was pretty sure was named Mr. Gladly. Absolutely nobody was looking happy to see me. Emma’s lips twitched as I looked at her, but beyond that there was no real reaction from anyone.  
  
_Click-click-click._  
  
“Close the door,” Blackwell ordered, her voice leaving no room for argument. I did, and shuffled to the corner of her desk as she gestured to it. Once I was there, silence fell over the office. Four sets of eyes were on me, mine were on Principal Blackwell, and hers were on a set of pages in front of her, ones that weren’t part of her presumed ‘to-do’ pile.  
  
Things were quiet for a few moments. The only sounds made were the shuffling of paper, some muffled speech form the main office bleeding in, and the sharp, irritating  _click-click-click_  of Madison cleaning her nails.  
  
Principal Blackwell didn’t glance my way once. Nor did she look at the four others in the room. All she did was continue looking through the same two or three papers, scanning a few lines of one before swapping to the next. She cycled through the papers about five times.  
  
Then, at last, she took a breath, a deep one. The action wasn’t quick or sudden, but I jumped a little all the same. To my surprise, there wasn’t a single laugh or snicker, although when I looked over to the Trio I saw Emma’s lip twitch again, just a bit.  
  
Blackwell cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention back to her. She laced her fingers through one another in a very practiced manner, and looked directly at me with a less-than-pleased expression.  
  
“Ms. Hay-burnt.”  
  
_Click_. I cringed, unable to help myself.  
  
“You asked to meet with me after school. You did not specify a reason why, but students often do not. That is fine, and perfectly within Winslow’s rules and code of conduct.”  
  
I said nothing. Blackwell motioned to the Trio with her hands, still together.  
  
“What is NOT within the code of conduct is the harassment of these three young ladies.”  
  
_I knew it. I knew this was going to happen._  
  
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”  
  
I nodded silently. I dropped my backpack to the ground and leaned down to start sifting through it, every movement feeling like I had to push through molasses. It took me less than a second to find the notebook, maybe two to flip to a random page and start reading.  
  
“August 4th,” I started. My voice was soft, shaky, but still audible. I forced it louder before continuing. “A total of seventeen spitballs in my hair. Sophia shoved me against the second floor lockers, bruised my elbow. She also tripped me or pushed me in several other places. Emma…” I noticed just now how dry my mouth was. I tried swallowing, but it didn't help, so I just continued on. “...Emma taunts me about my mother’s d… her d…”  _Deep breath, Taylor_ , “Her accident, for the twelfth time. Second time that month.” I stopped reading and looked up at the principal.  
  
_Click-click._  
  
Blackwell blinked at me. She didn’t seem… surprised? Upset? I hoped she just had a really good poker face, because the alternative was that she didn’t  _care_. She turned to the Trio and Gladly after a moment and asked, “Well?”  
  
Emma was the first to speak up. “I’m not sure… what to say,” she says, pausing in the middle of her sentence quite dramatically. “I didn’t expect her to keep a record of what she did to us.”  
  
I gaped at her, and the next thing I knew I was talking without thinking. “What I did to you? It’s what you did to m-”  
  
“Quiet!” Blackwell… not quite  _shouted_ , but her voice was definitely raised. “You’ll have your chance to speak, Ms. Hay-burnt, but there will be no interrupting anyone while in my office. Is that clear?”  
  
I swallowed again. Glanced at Emma. Back to Blackwell.  
  
_Click-click._  
  
She motioned to Sophia. “Ms. Hess, you’ve been noted to have a… troubled history. Do you have anything to say against these accusations?”  
  
Sophia shuffled in place for a bit. She looked down at the ground, at Emma and Madison, at me. Looking at her eyes was like looking at marbles, solid and unyielding. I couldn’t keep looking at her, so I let my eyes drop down to my bag. If this went south I didn’t want her thinking I was challenging her.  
  
“S’true,” she grumbled. “I pushed her a few times. I… had to let her know it wasn’t okay to bully people smaller than her. ‘Pick on someone your own size’, basically.”  
  
I gaped again as Blackwell nodded slowly. She spoke once more, this time a bit gravely. “And you should be well aware that it’s not permissible for students to take matters into their own hands. Two days detention, served after school.”  
  
_No._  
  
“Next time, Sophia, inform the faculty and we’ll take care of it.”  
  
_Nonono.  
  
Click-click-click._  
  
Blackwell looked at Madison and Emma. “I assume the situation is the same with you two? Trying to get back at Ms. Hay-burnt for bull-”  
  
“It’s HEBERT!” I yelled, finally losing my temper and throwing my notebook to the ground, gritting my teeth quite openly. Everyone stared at me. I flushed bright red as soon as I’d realized what I’d done.  
  
Again, Blackwell was the first to speak. “Very well then, Ms.  _Hebert_ ,” she said scarily softly, “I think we’re about done here. You,” she motioned to me, “will serve detention for the next two weeks after school. You two,” Emma and Madison, “will serve the same as Ms. Hess. I will be phoning all your parents tonight to inform them about this… situation.”  
  
_Nonononononononono_ -

***

_9:46 PM_  
  
Dad’s snoring was the only thing I could hear.  
  
Carefully, I sat up in my bed, rubbing the bits of onsetting sleep from my eyes. More carefully, I stepped onto the floor, praying that none of the floorboards decided to become suddenly noisy tonight. If they did, it’d just be one more thing that went wrong.  
  
I was practically sweating as I left my room and snuck downstairs. Every step was slow and deliberate, every breath tight and controlled. I could not afford to make any sound whatsoever. I’d never been able to tell if Dad was a light or heavy sleeper, but I really didn’t want to find out tonight.  
  
I made it down to the bottom of the stairs without anything more than the slight, muffled creaking they always made. It was nothing that would sound out of the ordinary. So, into the kitchen I tiptoed, feeling my way around with my hands and doing my best not to bump into anything. I was surprisingly successful, and the next thing I knew the house phone was in front of me.  
  
_God… I hate myself right now._  
  
It was a corded phone, mounted next to the cupboards. The actual cable ran behind the kitchen counter and up to the phone. The only phone in the entire house. There was a fine layer of dust on it, evidence that it hadn’t been used or even cleaned in a while.  
  
I hated myself for opening the doors under the counter.  
  
I hated myself for feeding the phone line back up through the small cutout in the counter.  
  
I hated myself for plugging the line back into the phone.  
  
And I hated myself most of all for not telling the truth to my Dad. But… I didn’t think he could handle the truth right now anyway. And as sick as it made me, as much as the thought made me want to throw up…  
  
I hated him a little for that, too.


	4. Simmer 1.4

_January 3, 2011_   
_Brockton Bay_   
_11:38 AM_

_Taylor_

One and a half weeks of vacation was nowhere near enough time away from the hellhole that was Winslow.

Coming back with an unsullied wardrobe was nice, and I did feel a little better having had some time to rest. But underneath all that was the lurking threat of eventually going back to school, and that thought carried a heaviness that weighed on every moment I was away. The moment I walked back through the front doors a wave of sickness washed over me, and things looked like they were going to pick up right where they left off.

To be fair, picking up  _exactly_ where I left off before break wouldn’t be the worst thing. Things had been… not better, but my Trio of tormentors had given me a lot of space this year. Not enough to let me think they were going to leave me alone once and for all, I had been through enough to realize  _that_ would never happen. Sophia’s parting gift before break had been a nice little trip down the stairs to ensure I had some bruises to remember her by, but there had been… just less, overall. That’s all.

The past four months had gotten me used to washing my backpack once a week, instead of every other day. It was almost nice, knowing that I wouldn’t be stuck going home with a soaking, stinking bag every day. Spending a few minutes shaking pencil shavings out of it was totally worth that.

So here I sat, my own little corner of the lunchroom, munching on some leftover pasta Dad had made two days ago. Despite our minimal Christmas celebration, money was going to be even tighter than usual this week, so Dad and I had made a bunch of food, then planned out what we would bring for lunches to school or work. It was cheaper than both of us buying lunch, if only by a little, and tasted a lot better. What little we had spent of Christmas, though, was worth it in the end. It was the first time in years that I had both my parents in the same room.

I wished every day since that I could have walked out with both of them, too.

That was just one of many things that passed through my head as I ate the last of the lukewarm pasta and started on…  _oh wow, I haven’t had carrots in a long time_. Those went down with a sharp  _crunch_ in short order.

If there was one nice thing about having the sort of ‘anti-friend space’ I did that magically activated every time I walked into Winslow, it was that I never had to worry about anybody, gang member or not, sitting too close to me. My bag had its own place on the seat next to mine, and if I slouched just a little my legs could reach all the way to the other side of the table and claim the opposing seat as a footrest. That left just one seat on my other side that was-

“Heeeey, Taylor.”

_No._

_No god please no._

Possibly the only social reject in Winslow worse than me was a boy named Greg Veder. I realized about halfway through my freshman year that he had plummeted to my current position by the end of his first week. I had taken about a month to fall there myself, and that was because Emma and her cohorts forced me there as fast as possible. And despite being in a little catagory of our own, more or less the ‘untouchables’, we never really clicked. I tried to be nice to him, but he was just too… well.

He was the single nerdiest, geekiest guy… no, boy, you really couldn’t call him anything other than that… that you ever saw. He didn’t just lack social grace, he actively sabotaged himself at every turn. I had seen it firsthand. If he tried to speak to girls? Fumbled words and instant avoidance. Other guys? They disengaged as fast as possible. Even other kids who you might have thought would be like Greg, the geeks and nerds, tried to stay as far away from him as possible.

I was reminded exactly why that was when the  _smell_ hit me.

Greg always had this constant aura of stink, one that you could easily perceive from the other side of a classroom. There was a running joke in Winslow that Greg was a parahuman, with the worst Shaker power ever. I was pretty sure some people even believed it, and it wasn’t hard to see, or rather smell, why that was.

Greg’s tray hit the table with a delicate  _clack_ as the boy himself sat next to me. His seat groaned in protest, more than Winslow furniture usually did. Greg had put on a lot of weight over the years, going from a short, scrawny geek with a bowlcut to a fat, smelly blob, still with a bowlcut, and the failed beginnings of facial hair. I felt sort of bad for thinking that about him, but it was too true for me not to.

Greg smiled at me, a sight that was slightly repulsive in and of itself. “Long time no see, huh?” He chuckled, no doubt thinking he was being friendly instead of creepy, and shifted in his seat. “I think the last class we had together was Geometry a year ago, right? How are you?”

I cringed and sat up in my seat, trying not to look directly at him. He was right, and I thanked whatever lucky stars I had left that that was so. This was one time I was thankful for my curly hair, as it allowed me to just slightly turn my head and have an instant curtain between me and him. “Fine,” I mumbled, trying not to engage or encourage him.

“That’s good to hear,” Greg said, nodding a bit more than was strictly necessary. He took a large bite of hamburger before speaking again. As much as I wished otherwise, he didn’t swallow before he continued. “I been the shame. Jusht takin’ it day by day, y’know?”

I nodded a little bit. Suddenly, I had lost my appetite for the rest of my lunch. And what I  _had_ eaten was suddenly not sitting so well. I started packing everything back into the brown paper bag I had brought it in, hoping he wouldn’t try to talk any more. Of course, that would have been something I wanted, so it didn’t happen.

“Actually, there was something I was meaning to ask you,” Greg said, his mouth clear of food. He looked a little sheepish when I glanced over to him. “I… can you help me?”

I sighed to myself. There was no way this was going to end well. But… maybe I could leverage this, somehow. If I helped Greg out this one time, maybe I could get him to leave me alone. It wasn't the best idea I’d had in recent memory, but hey, it just might be worth taking a shot at. It would work at least for the immediate future, I hoped.

“I… sure, I guess,” I sighed, already feeling how bad of an idea this was. “What is it you need my help with, Greg?”

His face split wide open in a smile at that. He stared at me for a solid two seconds like that, unblinking. I tried to smile back, but just failed entirely.

“It’s nothing too big,” he said, taking a swig of his drink. “Ah… I just, there’s this teacher I have, I know you had her last year. I was hoping you could take a look at my essay quick and tell me if it’s good.”

I blinked. That was… a surprisingly reasonable request. I nodded and folded my hands under the table, so he wouldn’t see my fingers fidgeting. “Sure, I can do that. Let me see it?”

Greg seemed to wince, but it might’ve been better to say that his whole body kind of  _shrunk_ , then expanded back out. Like a giant, blubbery pufferfish. “I, ah, actually… it’s in my locker.” He smiled with that ‘sheepish’ expression again. I did my best not to cringe or run, which was apparently noticed because Greg tried to perk himself up before adding, “It’s only on the second floor, no too far from the stairwell. If you want, I can go get it, but…”

I took a deep breath. There was no way he would get there and back in time, and I really didn’t need him bugging me later today, or any day going forward. A smile was forced onto my face, probably looking every bit as strained as it felt. “No, no big deal. Let’s go.”

I followed Greg out of the lunchroom, wondering why he bothered buying his lunch as I watched him dump half of it into the trash. I also couldn’t think of any essay I had written before that was this big a deal, but then, I probably didn’t have Greg’s actual class either. And hey, if this essay was that important, all the better for me. Although, as we headed up to the second floor, I wondered if people could think any less of me for actually helping him.

Greg was noticeably winded as we topped the second flight, so I stood by as he caught his breath, arms folded across my chest. There was a faint odor in the air, one I had noticed earlier in the day. I had no idea where it was coming from, and having not had any reason to be on the second floor today it wasn’t something I thought much of. Actually, it was probably good that I was here now, since my locker was on this floor. I figured I might as well drop off the books I wouldn’t need tonight.

“Other end,” Greg said, having stopped his panting and now moving down the hall.

There was a droning noise over the intercom, one I couldn’t remember hearing before. It took me a moment, but I remembered that the school was implementing a new bell near the end of the lunch period to stop students from being tardy back to class. And sure enough, I could see other kids starting to fill the hallways. It wasn’t a ‘back-to-class’ bell, but it let me know time was short.

“Come on,” I urged Greg. “I’ve only got a few minutes before I have to head to the gym.” He didn’t say anything in response, just nodded and kept walking at a very slow pace.

I shifted my bag on my shoulders impatiently. The smell in the hall was getting worse the farther we went. A metallic sting hung in the air, almost like blood. Something else too, reminding me of when I was little, and Mom pulled a bunch of vegetables from the fridge after we had come back from a family vacation. If I was being a bit dramatic, I would’ve said it smelled like decay.

I stopped about halfway down the hall, where the odor was so strong it actually overpowered Greg’s terrible B.O. My stomach was rumbling in severe protest to what my nose reported to it, although it seemed like Greg didn’t mind, because he kept on walking.

_God, that smells rancid_. I had to hold my nose, just to stop the smell from making me any more sick. I looked around, trying to figure out just what it was that smelled so bad. There was nothing obvious to be seen, just rows of student lockers. All of the classroom doors were closed the moment the rooms were emptied. While that didn’t count them out, there weren’t any janitorial staff around coming to clean anything, so the smell probably wasn’t coming from a classroom.

It was just my luck that something decided to die on the same floor as-

_No. No thank you brain, I didn’t want another ‘eureka’ moment._

I looked at the lockers around me. They were the tall, thin sort of lockers, with their outsides covered in dull brown paint. It was a tossup with each one whether that paint was chipped or faded, but unlike the locker rooms in the gym, they all had a lock built-in. But of course, you could never be certain which ones still worked. Mine did, fortunately enough, although the grates had allowed for some nasty stuff to get shoved in there from time to time.

I was starting to wonder if something actually  _had_ died and been shoved in a locker. There were two big gangs in the school, the white supremacist ‘Empire Eighty-eight’ and the asian-exclusive ‘Asian Bad Boys’. They didn’t get into lethal fights often, but it never paid to put anything past them. The third group worth any thought, the Merchants, were usually too high to do anything dangerous, but maybe one of theirs had locked themselves up, stoned out of their minds.

My eyes roamed the locker numbers near me.  _221… 222… 223… 224…_

224\. My locker. I had to check.

Nose still held tightly, for all the good that it did, I stepped up to my locker and brought my hand up to enter my combination. I didn’t notice until it was right in front of me that I was actually making me shaking, just a little. Even though I knew that it was impossible, the last thing I wanted was to find a body in my locker.

“Hey Taylor.”

I closed my eyes and did my best not to groan out loud.  _Noooooo…_

“Got something you’re trying to hide?”

“Bet she goes in there to shake off all that grease.”

“Smells like something died over here.”

“Maybe she’s got something in the locker?”

“I bet she trapped a boy in there.”

“Probably, she couldn’t get one to talk to her if she tried.”

“Be fair Julie, if you looked like that you’d do it too.”

“Even if I had sticks for limbs, I wouldn’t have a stick for a brain.”

_Just ignore them_ , I thought to myself frantically, trying not to clamp my hands over my ears to drown out the giggling. _Ignore it and it’ll go away. Just ignore it. Just igno-_

My locker clicked as the lock was released, and my feet were promptly covered in garbage. I flinched back as my locker door all but flew open the moment the handle was lifted, and an entire pile of  _white and red and smell and ohgod-_

‘Fucking rancid’ didn’t describe it. Didn’t even begin to. A literal cloud of filth and stink slapped me across the face, then whacked me in the gut like Sophia with a sledgehammer. My eyes teared up faster than I could ever remember as I felt my whole torso  _lurch_ , and I emptied my stomach into the open locker.

Bloody pads. Used tampons. Rotting food. Discarded wrappers. It was like someone had just upended a trash can inside my locker, then thrown in a month’s worth of dirty hygiene products,  _then added a dash of vomit, for flavor._

I retched again, and another helping of vomit decorated the back of the locker. It felt like my gut was some kind of witch’s cauldron, bubbling and boiling and just bringing all kinds of hurt.

Then I felt someone grab onto my shirt and pants, I was stumbling backwards then flying forwards then _nonononNONONONO_

***

_Ridley_

Passing to my next class after lunch proved to be a real pain. There was a huge blockage of other students stopped right in the middle of the second floor, all of them fixated around something just past my sight. I couldn’t even make out what was happening by listening to some shouting and laughter.  
  
“What’s going on?” I asked aloud.  
  
One of the other bystanders turned to me and shrugged. “Some track team prank, I think. Saw Hess in there.”  
  
A chill settled over me as the not-so-helpful person turned back towards the inside of the crowd. I knew the name ‘Hess’. More importantly, I knew I didn’t like the owner of said name. She was in the popular crowd, but I had seen how she acted when nobody was supposed to be looking.  
  
I shifted around the outside of the crowd for a few seconds, before starting to slide my way inwards. There wasn’t a person alive who could call me skinny, but everyday practice slipping around the slowpokes at Winslow let me get closer to the center without anyone getting too agitated. Those closer to the front had a variety of different reactions, some cringing, while others looked ill. A few didn’t have any outward expression at all, but most? Most were laughing.  
  
There were two inner circles. One that marked the edge of the crowd, who observed but didn’t act, and one further in. The second circle was made up of maybe a half-dozen girls, who themselves surrounded two-  
  
I froze as one girl picked up and bodily threw another girl into an open locker, and slam the door. The first I knew was Sophia, there was no mistaking her face and physique, but the mere half-second I saw the other girl left me clueless as to who she was.  
  
I looked around. People were still frozen. Some of those who had looked ill left quickly. The others who were laughing before laughed harder still when the tall, skinny girl was thrown in the locker, and a few of them went into full-on cackles when the door was slammed shut on her.  
  
My eyes drifted down and caught something that had fallen out of the locker. A bloody pad, stained red and brown and that sickly greenish-tan color that only vomit had. I looked around again. Nobody was doing anything to help.  _Why is nobody helping that girl?_  
  
I caught myself just as my foot inched forward.  
  
_Come on_ , I thought,  _someone. Anyone. Another girl, preferably. Another track team guy. Just someone._  
  
The crowd was starting to disperse. People had already lost interest, like their favorite show had ended and they no longer had reason to watch the TV. I looked around furiously, hoping that someone would step forward. A student, a teacher, I didn’t care.  _They’re not just going to leave her in there, are they?_  
  
The inner crowd lost a few members, but the circle stayed intact. My eyes widened as the situation became more clear. Nobody was going to help that girl trapped in the locker because  _they were all in on it_.  
  
All the tension drained out of me for just a moment. I stepped towards the circle of girls, who were still laughing and congratulating one another. I recognized a few faces, most of them were the ‘popular’ girls, those who were liked by everyone for being pretty, smart, or whatever. All people I didn’t like anyway. That made what I did next a little easier.  
  
“Hey,” I said, raising my voice slightly. One girl turned her head towards me, but she barely blinked and went back to her friends almost immediately. I exhaled and took a deep breath. Nerves started to set in.  
  
“HEY!” I yelled, the sheer volume drowning out the circle of girls in the middle of their taunting and self-congratulation, and catching the attention of everyone present. All eyes were on me, and despite my simmering anger, I froze for a moment.  
  
“What,” Sophia growled from past her groupees. “You got something to say?”  
  
I was still stuck in place, like a deer in the headlights, unable to think straight.  
  
_Remember what Dad said._  
  
“What the FUCK is THIS!?” I roared, feeling my face redden. I flung an arm out to point at the locker, now prison. “What are you fucki-”  
  
Sophia rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm the moment it was extended, pulling me past her circle of observers and throwing me against the wall of lockers. There wasn’t a single chance for me to keep yelling about anything else, as I felt the air driven out of my lungs with a single punch to the gut.  
  
After that was just pure dizziness, as the track star slammed my head against the metal door behind me. “Showing a little dirtbag her place,” she hissed. “Same place you belong.” The locker next to the trapped girl’s was thrown open, and I was tossed inside. Sophia spat into the locker as I fell limply inside. “Next time, don’t fucking wait.”  
  
The door slammed shut.

*** 

_??:?? AM/PM_

Everything was hurting.

From the spot where I banged my head on the coat hanger inside my locker, to my feet buried in filth and my hands too I thought I cut them and  _oh god there’s things crawling in here-_

I vomited again-

It was seeping into my shoes I could  _feel_ it and it just made the stench worse I could hardly even breathe in here it was so bad I tried pressing against the door but it wouldn’t open all I did was cut myself on the metal I cradled them against my shirt but that was covered in vomit too and there was filth everywhere  _why can’t I get ou-_

Again but no this time there was nothing coming up it was just  _sick_ and I felt  _sick_ -

Banging on the door why was nobody hearing me I couldn’t speak I just yelled out my head was swimming again I couldn’t think or see straight it was oh why was it so warm in here it was supposed to be cold I’m sweating and I can’t breathe and

I hit

my

head

***

_??:?? AM/PM_

Where was I?

It was so dark. 

My head hur-

_Oh GOD that smell._

I threw up in my mouth a little.

Some of it fell to the floor. A bit landed on my shirt.

I felt so tired.

I couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear much. I remembered the first few nights… what was… four years ago? Five?  _Wait, what was I thinking about?_

I tried to stand, failed. Everything was too tight. I remembered.

I felt for my phone. Wasn’t on my hip. Wasn’t in my pocket…

My leg crumpled, my foot slipped. Hit something. That was probably it.

I reached down… leather case. Definitely my phone.

I flipped it open… nothing. No light. Pressed the power button. Screen flashed… died a second later.

I felt around with my hands. Cramped, no room to move. Still felt like metal.  _Am I still in the locker?_

My fingers grazed over a small box on the door. The lock, probably. I felt screws, one, two. Two was loose.  _Simple then, just take the lock off._

No light made it harder. I tried to stand up, hit my head on the upper shelf, flinched and sank a little lower.

_OW… ow… ow…_

I closed my eyes and held my head. Tried to calm my breathing…

*** 

_??:?? AM/PM_

Where was I?

It was so dark.

It smelled so bad. I felt like I was going to-

_Oh_.

I retched. How many times had I done this already? Wake up, fall asleep, wake up, fall asleep, wake up, fall asleep wakeup fallasleep  _wakeupfallasleep-_

I was so alone. Why was nobody here? Someone, anyone laugh point something just nothing there was nobody here  _why nobody there has to be make a noise already just do something_  Mom or Dad or Emma or Madison Sophia Julie Lindsay Josh Greg Armsmaster Alexandria Militia SOMEONE _ANYONE-_

There was a cape who did something like. Was he dead? Or was he alive, just for me?

I was pretty sure  _there was something crawling on me._

There was something crawling in my nose. And it was in my mouth. And  _my hair and my legs and they’re everywhere someone help me get them off please I don’t want to be here anymore please just get them off off off OFF OFFOFFOFF_

***  
Destination.  
***

ICANSEEITHURTSICANSMELLITITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSICANFEELEVERYTHINGITHURTSITHURTS-  
  
_MOM DAD MOM DAD MOM DAD MOM_  
  
DAD MOM DAD MOM DAD MOM  
  
DAD MOM DAD MOM DAD  
  
MOM DAD MOM DAD  
  
MOM DAD MOM  
  
DAD MOM  
  
DAD  
 

 

***  
Refine. Splinter.  
***

  
Was someone… screaming?

_That’s definitely screaming. It’s not me._

I blinked. I was tired. So, unbelievably tired…

What was…  _was I doing something?_

I blinked again. Everything was dark, before and after. I pushed outwards, feeling cold metal all around me.

_I’m… in a locker? How… God... what is that smell..._

_Oh. Oh no._

I jerked in place, panic driving back the fog of weariness. Not all the way, but enough to think. Enough to get out. Maybe.

I felt around, trying to find something to get me out of here. Under my arm, I made contact with a box-like piece of metal.

_Two is loose_ , I dimly recalled. I wondered exactly how I remembered that, before the actual memory came forth. Less like a movie, more like a snowglobe filled with mud. My fingers fumbled trying to actually undo the loose screw, but after a few tries it clattered to the bottom of the locker.

Next was the hard one.

I felt in my pocket, pulled out a pen. One of the fancier ones, five dollars a pop. I couldn’t remember where I found it. About half a minute was spent just holding it, trying to recall that detail.

The locker next to me rumbled as something inside flopped about.

_Wait, what was I… oh, right._

_Right_. The clip was snapped off, the pen I dropped. I slid the clip into the screwhead. Turned it, half a rotation before the clip snapped in half.

It wasn’t easy, but I jerked my hand back into my pocket. The only thing there was a cheap mechanical pencil. I grabbed it.  _Snap. Turn_. Less than half a turn, it snapped again. There was nothing else to use. A quick check of my hip followed. Zip. I took off my glasses, tried to fit an arm into the screwhead. It didn’t work.

My glasses slipped from my fingers, and fell straight to the bottom of the locker. I cursed to myself.

One more idea came through. My mother always complained about how I didn’t trim my nails often. The nail of my thumb slid right into the screwhead. It hurt, but just a bit of effort and the screw began to turn…

Then caught.

I swore again. Shuffled in place as I tried to get a better angle-

_Ck-crunch._

The sound of shattering glass came up from the ground.

I stopped shifting, slid my nail back and _oh god there’s something crawling on my leg._

I jumped as the feeling of far too many small legs shifted and slid over one ankle, then the other. The half-unscrewed screw cut my arm in my panic, while I was frantically brushing down my pant legs. All my tiredness flew out the window, I was fully awake.

The feeling of insects on me subsided, then redoubled. I grabbed onto the stuck screw and turned, yanked,  _twisted_ as hard as I could. The sharp edges cutting my hands and fingers open didn’t matter, not so long as I got out of the giant terrarium.

The screw eventually unstuck, letting me more or less just pull it out of its socket. The whole lock assembly fell off the door, and the door itself swung outward as I collapsed onto the ground, barely managing to roll and avoid breaking my face on the tile floor.

I laid motionless on the floor, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself. Only, those breaths were so unbelievably disgusting I had to suppress the urge to vomit all over myself.

I looked around. There was hardly any light in the hallway, just a few silver beams shining in through closed classroom doors. It was, however, enough to allow me to look back at the open locker I had fallen from. More importantly, the locker next to it.

I pushed myself to my feet, stumbling a bit as the world spun. I took a step toward the locker a bit too early, and nearly fell down again, just barely catching myself as I collided with the wall of metal.

“Hey…” I croaked, blinking at how quiet my voice was. I coughed, the air was just too foul not too. I cleared my throat, and tried again.

***

_...ang...bang…  
  
“...lax man, nobo…”  
  
...blood and water and dirt…  
  
Bang. Bang bang.  
  
“...ot the good stu…”  
  
...people oil rust…  
  
...yellow light silver light green light…  
_  
“HeeEeeEY!”  
_  
BANG BANG BANG.  
  
Whose voi… ven cracks lik...?  
  
...es my… do that?  
  
Are those… drugs? I’ve never… smelled like…   
  
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANKL-ANG.  
  
Something  
  
hit_  
  
the door.  
  
I jumped.  
  
Everything was quiet. The only thing I could hear was my breathing.  
  
Then came a groaning from outside the locker.  
  
“H-h… huuu…” I wheezed. My throat was so dry, so scratchy… “Huuuh… “  
  
“Hey… hey in there…” Someone was on the other side of door. “C’mon. Sa-say something.”  
  
My breathing got a little heavier as the rot hit me. My legs turned from numb sticks to wet noodles, and I sank deeper into the pile of… what was all this? Pads? Bandages? Other things?  
  
“H-hhhlp…” I could hardly say anything. Air wasn’t coming out ri-  
  
I started choking on something in my throat. Something  _big and leggy and GET OUT._  
  
Choking became coughing as the  _thing_ in my throat scrambled up. I was coughing, then choking, then coughing again and coughing again and choking and finally it came up and I spat it out.  
  
A spider came out.  
  
It hit the pile of filth I was on.  
  
It  _ran_ away  _faster than_  I had _ever seen a spider move god I didn’t know they could even move that fast it was terrifyi-_  
  
“CoHOMbo,” the voice half-yelled, half-coughed, jerking my attention around. It said… ‘combo’?  
  
Combo. My locker combination.  
  
Was it… going to get me out?  
  
I shivered, feeling the grime covering my skin. The pile only came up to my knee, how had it reached my neck?  
  
I coughed, nothing else came out. Nothing felt like it was in there, either. I coughed a few more times, trying to get rid of the itchy, almost ticklish feeling. I swallowed, causing a coughing fit of a different kind as I found out just how sore my throat was.  
  
Had I been… screaming?  
  
There was a noise from outside the locker.  
  
I could  _feel_ someone moving away. There was a… a shift, I couldn’t describe it. I could feel them walking, so very slowly, down the hallway. I heard their footsteps too, soft and heavy and slow and uneven.  
  
I realized the only person who had tried to help me in… I don’t know how long… that person was walking away from me. They were walking away because I  _couldn’t be helped_.  
  
That thought hurt me. It hurt. It hurt worse than laying here, on my own little pile of garbage. Worse than any push or shove, or broken bone, or being shoved into my own locker. Worse than being hated by my  _best friend_.  
  
I was a lost cause. The only person who couldn’t see it was me.  
  
I was so  _stupid_.  
  
Tears came to my eyes. There was no point in stopping them.  
  
I just let them come, and let them fall, and let myself start shaking and start crying and didn’t even bother to wipe the tears away and I noticed how cold it was I was so cold it was so dark I couldn’t see but I couldn’t but I couldn’t it was impossible to see or smell or taste anything but  _salt_ or  _blood_ or  _rot_ or

***

I cursed myself as I walked away from the locker. I had been hoping maybe the girl inside was conscious, figuring how I had made so much noise, but no dice. I didn’t want to just leave her alone, but I couldn’t get the locker open without the combination. She couldn’t give me that, so I had to do the next best thing.  
  
I sneezed. My head felt like it would either burst or implode, I wasn’t sure which.  
  
Down the stairs I went, doing my best not to fall every other step. There were a few windows in the stairwell, letting me know that it was night, and I was not dreaming that the moon was already out. I sighed heavily. How long had I… had we been unconscious for?  _Too long_ , was my immediate thought.  _Long enough that someone might be looking for us._  
  
Say what you would about my mother, it might be true. But she never let me out of her sight for long, and for once, that might be a good thing.  
  
Even in the silver-laced darkness of Winslow at night, it wasn’t hard to make my way down one flight of stairs and through the empty corridors to the main office. The doors were unlocked, surprisingly enough, but the thought crossed my mind that they might just be broken, like everything else in the school.  
  
I stumbled into the office, having leaned on the door just a bit too much as I opened it. The office windows were tinted a heavy, sickly yellow, dampening the little light coming in. I had to feel, rather than see, my way around. I almost fell as my foot caught on some chair or cabinet, making my way around the front desk and all but falling into the chair there.  
  
I started feeling around for the phone.  _There_. I picked up the receiver, doing my best to hold it steady, and more importantly, not drop it.  
  
Three numbers. Even a concussed wuss like me could do it.  
  
I discovered that school phones were just about the worst sort of communication devices since paper wrapped around rocks. I could hardly understand what the… man? I thought it was a man… the guy on the other end, I barely knew what he was saying.  
  
“Winslow High,” I said into the phone, forcing my voice as calm and steady as I could. “Two students. Stuck in locker. Second floor. Plea… Please send help.”  
  
The man said something else. I was only able to make out the word ‘officers’, and decided that was good enough. Call made, I pushed myself up, which was no small effort. I shuffled out of the office, hitting my other foot on the same furniture object, which I cursed, and cursed the line of all its predecessors.  
  
It wasn’t quite easy to get back up the stairs, back to the locker, but I managed. The door of the one I had been stuck in still hung open, and I made no effort to close it. As I got closer, however, I started hearing noises. Noises like someone shuffling around, and… crying?  
  
I was standing outside the locker itself. I pressed my ear to the cold metal, listening. There wasn’t any crying. The girl inside was still unconscious, and the sounds I had been hearing were all in my-  
  
The noises stopped. I pulled back, looked around.  
  
The noises started again. Bugs, I realized. Some were inside the locker, but most were outside, creaking and chirping. It just sounded like crying, that was all.  
  
I sighed again, and let myself slowly fall against the locker door. The pseudo-crying noises stopped and started every so often, breaking and reestablishing the quiet at random intervals. It was like a hive mind conductor was driving an insectoid orchestra. I chuckled despite myself.  
  
“It’s alright,” I said aloud, more to myself than anything. “We’ll be fine. Police are coming… I think.”  
  
I coughed once. The stench in the air was still present, but it wasn’t so bad anymore. Either that, or I was getting used to it, but I was really hoping the former was the case.  
  
“If not… well. Guess we’ll be here for another twelve hours.”  
  
I paused, feeling slightly awkward. Here I was, talking to someone who couldn’t hear me, in a school that didn’t really care about anyone. It was kind of funny, in a way. I wasn’t sure what way that was, but my point, at least to me, still stood. For all intents and purposes, I really was just talking to myself. The girl inside the locker was almost definitely not aware of anything that was happening.  _Ah, whatever. Best company I’ve had in weeks._  
  
“I’m sorry this happened to you, whoever you are. I mean, there’s pranks, there’s bullying, then there’s… this.  
  
“I guess it’s harder for girls to deal with this kind of stuff. Us guys, we just throw a couple punches, maybe yell a bit, then it’s over. Well, I say ‘us’, but I really mean everyone else. I only ever threw one punch, back in elementary school, but man…”  
  
I didn’t know how long it took the police officers to get to us, but it was too long. At least long enough for me to actually tell a story, and anyone who had to listen to me for that long should probably get a medal.  
  
As I was led to one of the cruisers outside the school, I wondered if I should pin that medal on the girl when she got out, or through Sophia’s face.


	5. Simmer 1.5

_January 5th, 2011_  
_Brockton Bay_  
 _2:07 PM_

_Taylor_

When I had first woken up, there happened to be a nurse in the room. She had said some things that hadn’t made sense to me, a few things that did, then left. She came back a few minutes later, with someone named Dr. Jacobs who greeted me with a forced smile and proceeded to ask me a few questions. My name, if I knew where I was, things like that.  
  
Then he and the nurse both left. So here I sat, waiting.  
  
Whenever people woke up in hospitals in TV, movies, or even books, they were usually greeted by the steady beeping of a heart monitor. Nothing so fancy for me. All I had was an IV drip and a small pot of flowers by my bedside. It wasn’t even a full vase, just one of those tiny arrangements you could buy for a couple dollars. They looked like just another part of the hospital decor, so much so I wasn’t sure if they were actually for me.  
  
Having nothing else to do, I just laid in bed and looked around the hospital room. There wasn’t anything terribly unusual about the room I was in. I recognized it as Brockton Bay General, but nothing beyond that. Just the same white tiled floor, and brown walls and ceiling that I saw every time I was here. The curtain that divided the room in two was closed, and though I could faintly make out sounds of someone breathing, I wasn’t sure if it there really was another person there or if I was hearing something else.  
  
Things were incredibly fuzzy, I noticed. I couldn’t see very far, and my glasses were nowhere to be seen. What I could see was reduced to almost shapeless blurs of color, becoming almost unrecognizable beyond the foot of my bed. Sounds too were dampened, like I had buried my head under a pillow. Oddly, my sense of smell was fine. The stink of clean hospital, bad as it was, was like a breath of fresh air. I could pick out at least three different cleaners, although I had absolutely no idea what their names actually were.  
  
There was also a weird pressure in the air-  
  
_Knock knock knock._  
  
If I could have jumped, I would have, but instead I just sort of jerked my head towards the noise. I squinted towards the door, making out the shape of someone tall, light skinned… Dad. That’s the only one it could be.  
  
“Taylor,” he gasped, rushing forward and kneeling down on my right side. He placed a hand on my head and ran it through my hair, smiling with his eyes full of tears. “How… how are you holding up?”  
  
“Alright,” I croaked out, noticing how dry my throat was. I swallowed a few times before saying anything else. “How long have I-”  
  
Dad let out a quick sigh after I answered him. “Two days,” he replied. “The doctors were afraid it might’ve been longer, but…” He stopped and bit his lip, just looking at me for a minute. Then he leaned forward and hugged me. “Thank god you’re okay.”  
  
I tried to hug him back, but I only managed to get one arm around him, the other kept by my side by the IV. When he pulled back, he wiped his eyes and coughed a bit. Behind him, Dr. Jacobs walked back in, holding a clipboard stacked with notes and steadily flicking through them.  
  
“Mr. Hebert,” he spoke up, his tone all business. “Now that you’re here, there’s a few things that I need to speak with you about.”  
  
Dad stood up, frowning heavily. “I’ve got a few things to say as well.” Dr. Jacobs opened his mouth to reply to that, but Dad just rolled right over him. “I don’t know what god… darn reason you had for keeping me from my daughter, but-”  
  
“As I was  _saying_ ,” the doctor cut him off, adjusting his grip on his clipboard without looking at either of us. “There are a number of things you may have heard, so allow me to clear up your daughter’s conditions.”  
  
The doctor cleared his throat. “Ms. Hebert was admitted to Brockton Bay General Hospital on Tuesday, January 4th, at approximately 2AM. She had numerous incisions and a few lacerations, all of which were contaminated. She was undergoing a psychotic break until she awakened today, and has been under hourly surveillance accordingly.”  
  
Jacobs looked up from his notes, toward my dad. “Following so far?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. From what I could make out of my father’s face, he had a tight grimace, but he said nothing and just nodded instead.  
  
“Alright,” Jacobs nodded, his tone softening slightly. “We will be keeping Ms. Hebert for another day to verify no infection has set in, nor any psychosis seems likely to trigger. Given the circumstances reported to us, it is likely she broke under extreme stress, and seeing her now, we aren’t too worried on that front.”  
  
He paused, then flipped through a few pages.  
  
“Mr. Hebert.” My dad stiffened. “Your daughter was found in a locker at her high school. This locker was filled with trash, debris, vermin, and an abundance of pads and tampons. The only reason she is here, some would say even alive, is because someone other than you was there for her.” The doctor narrowed his eyes. “As one father to another, I suggest you start paying more attention to your daughter’s well-being.” He motioned to the curtain. “Your family has already lost enough.”  
  
A cold weight settled in my stomach.  
  
“I’ll be in my office at four tonight,” Dr. Jacobs turned and started walking out the door, “ and the police will be stopping by your residence within the week. If you have any questions…”  
  
He left without another word.  
  
It seemed an entire hour passed before Dad let out a long, heavy breath. He sat down at the foot of my bed like there was a ton of lead on his shoulders, and just looked at the floor for a long time. He didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there and gazed at nothing. I didn’t know what was going through his mind, but mine was just replaying the doctor’s words.  
  
I wasn’t really thinking on any of it, just… going with the flow. Words, sentences replayed themselves over and over. ‘Psychosis’, ‘alive’, ‘someone other than you’. ‘ _Lost enough_ ’. All of those just… repeated, not in any particular order, all against a buzzing background of nothing.  
  
Still waiting for Dad to move or say something, it occurred to me that I had yet to sit up in my bed. I scooched back just a bit, reaching back and propping my pillow up. Even the little that I moved seemed to startle him, as he sort of jolted to look at me, then sighed heavily and put his head in his hands.  
  
“I’m so sorry, Taylor,” he muttered. “He’s right. I should have been there for you.”  
  
_Wouldn’t be the first time_ , I thought to myself. I blinked and immediately quashed that line of thinking before it could go any further. Instead, I took a deep breath and murmured, “Wasn’t your fault, Dad.”  
  
He shook his head. “It was. It didn’t even occur to me that you might have been in trouble. I just thought you were staying the night at Emma’s and had forgotten to tell me.”  
  
_Emma_.  
  
I opened my mouth to say it. To say that Emma was no longer my friend. That she was the reason I had been in that locker. That the past two years had been hell on Earth. To just say that everything, my grades, my mood, my social life,  _everything_ was because of her. I wanted to tell my dad, let him know that everything wasn’t okay, but I just… couldn’t.  
  
Looking at him at the foot of my bed, slumped over… I couldn’t do it. I looked over towards the curtain dividing the room. I had seen Dad fall into pieces just a few years ago. If I told him what was really going on… if I told him the  _truth_ , then he would either go off on a crusade against the school and everyone in it, or he would just break down.  
  
I couldn’t watch him do that again.  
  
I blinked, and realized Dad had been speaking while I was absorbed in my thoughts. “... I’m going to go to the school. This happened on their grounds, they’re at least partly responsible. Are you okay with that, kiddo?” He was looking at me expectantly, and for the most part I had no idea what he was talking about.  
  
“I… yeah, good idea Dad,” I said quietly. He nodded slowly to himself, and stood up.  
  
“Alright. Are… you going to be okay here? Do you need me to stay?”  
  
Again I opened my mouth to say something. But like so many times before this, all I could do was lie, and pretend I was okay. So I smiled instead, and shook my head slowly. “I’ll be okay, Dad. I just need some rest, is all.”  
  
The look on his face said how much he believed me, but it was easy to see how quickly he accepted the lie. How much he wanted it to be true, and accepted it because of that. “Okay. I’ll be back tonight, or tomorrow morning.” He came forward and kissed me on the brow. “I love you, Taylor.”  
  
“Love you too, Dad.” And with one more smile, I was left alone.  
  
Alone… with my mother.  
  
I knew that Dr. Jacobs hadn’t motioned to the curtain randomly. There was a reason it was closed. I could feel it, there was something in the air that just told me it was her. A pressure. A  _familiar_ pressure.  
  
Actually, now that I focused on it, there really  _was_ a pressure that I could feel. It was almost physical, but strangely not. Like the air itself was tense, but that air was hitting both my skin and my brain at the same time. If could focus on it, just a little bit, if and when I did I just  _knew_ that pressure belonged to my mother.  
  
I closed my eyes, just feeling that force that my mother being in the room made. It made me feel better, just a little bit. My mind stopped mulling over the doctor’s words and just sat still, amongst the constant buzzing that I had been hearing since I woke up.  
  
That buzzing was actually starting to get a little annoying without anyone to distract my attention. My face twitched as I focused on the buzzing, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It didn’t seem like it was coming from any direction in particular, just sort of surrounding me and coming from everywhere at once.  
  
I brought my hands up to my ears, trying to block it out. When I felt cotton touch my ears instead of skin, I jumped just a bit and opened my eyes. I brought my hands forward, looking them over. As I did, I felt a tiny knife dig its way into my chest with every thread that passed before my eyes. I couldn’t feel much under the wrappings, but in my head I was aware that there were several cuts on my hands that I would have to face once I left the hospital.  
  
_Emma_.  
  
The knife dug deeper.  
  
When Dad had said it, that name had saddened me. Now, all by myself and with only my own thoughts, that name made me  _angry_. How dare she pull something like this on me? Me, who was her best friend before Sophia and Madison came along? Where did she think she got off doing this?  _How dare she-_  
  
I caught myself when the knife went from my chest to my palms, a sharp sting of pain lancing through the anger in my head. I took several deep breaths, in through the nose, out through my mouth. My go-to solution for dealing with my temper, which I had inherited from my Dad. It worked, if only slowly. My anger took a while to drain out of me, and only then did I start thinking again.  
  
It was pointless to get upset over what happened, I knew.  _What's the best case scenario,_ I wondered? My best case... laid somewhere between the Trio going to prison, and getting out of Winslow once and for all. Worst case? They brushed everything under the rug and ignored it like they always did. My money was on the latter. Why should this time be any different from the hundreds of other time I had fallen prey to the Trio? The doctor had mentioned the police, but what were they but the school administration on a bigger scale?  
  
I wiped away the tears that seemed to form in response to the mere thought of going back to normal at Winslow. Instead of dwelling on it further, I turned over onto my side and closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep, and forget where I was.

***

_January 5th, 2011_  
_Brockton Bay_  
 _??:?? PM_  
  
_White isles_  
  
_One star glimmers in the darkness._  
  
_Dim lights_  
  
_Two stars orbit each other in the darkness._  
  
_Trays of foodanddrink_  
  
_Three._  
  
_Smells of liquidbaddrinknotouchbad_  
  
_Four._  
  
_Bags of fooddrinkstalenotgoodbutstillfood_  
  
_Five._  
  
_Footsteps of workerfemalesnotqueensstillincharge_  
  
_Twenty._  
  
_Scrapingnotmalkingnotrailsnosmellsnonsensesickallaroundhiveofsickanddead_  
  
_A hundred._  
  
_Everything I see is not my sight._  
  
_Everything I smell is not my scent._  
  
_Everything I feel is not my touch._  
  
_Everything I hear is not my hearing._  
  
_Everything I taste is not mine._  
  
_The stars are so beautiful tonight._  
  
_Every step sends me drifting, like a leaf falling from its home._  
  
_Is this what being in space is like? There’s nothing but me and the stars, everything that’s not a point of light is just… nothing. Empty space. Nothing to feel, nothing to taste, nothing to see._  
  
_One of the stars twinkles, sending a spray of light against the backdrop of black. I reach towards it, feeling it float closer to me… or am I getting closer to it? None of the other lights fade away…_  
  
_I cup the star in my hands, holding without touching. I close my eyes, feeling the gentle heat touch my skin, the feeling of a thousand thousand little strokes, each with its own warmth and sensation._  
  
_A finger twitches, and I touch the star, feel its heartbeat…_

***

A man smelling of oil and burning sat beside the bed of a woman who smelled of clean and dying. The man moved and touched the woman but the woman did not move she only said words without meaning. Another woman came young not old said words and the man cried tears of salt.

***

_I gasp and let the star go._  
  
_It spirals away on unseen wings, flowing in a cosmic wind._  
  
_Another comes to me, and I see without seeing._

***

A man sat in stale dead chair. He said words to stiff oil and the oil answered back in words that were not words but the man understands. The man pushes back the stale dead seat and touches stale dead trees said more words that the oil said back. The man reached grabbed stale dead food  _why is everything stale in this cold stale place_.

***

_It too flies away._  
  
_The stars start falling, falling, falling. They fall towards me, and I can touch every one of them. Each finds a place on my skin and all their warmth flows to me._  
  
_Everything I see is not my sight._  
  
_Everything I smell is not my scent._  
  
_Everything I feel is not my touch._  
  
_Everything I perceive is not my hearing._  
  
_Everything I savor is not my taste._  
  
_But all the stars… they are mine._

 

***

The first thing I was aware of when I woke up was the feeling of pins and needles all over my hands.  
  
Flexing my fingers a few times didn’t really get rid of the sensation. It was gone in only a second, but it felt less like vanishing, and more like a wave flowing out, then coming back and over my hands. I’d never felt anything quite like it before, and wondered if there was something funny in the IV.  
  
Blinking slowly, I rubbed my eyes with one hand. Whatever time it was, it was definitely late at night. The lights of the hospital were either dimmed or completely off, and I could only barely see inside my room thanks to one of the dim hall lights shining in through the door.  
  
The little pricks on my skin went from one side to another. I shook my arm, trying to fix that, but the pricks didn’t so much as move. In fact, it really  _was_ like needles had been put into my skin, and they weren’t moving at all.  
  
I sat up, feeling my arm to make sure I hadn’t done something stupid, like wrap the IV around myself. The dozens of pins finally moved, but they went from my arm to my hand. Confused, I blinked a few more times, trying to clear out the stars from my vision and make something out in the almost absent light of the hospital.  
  
As I moved my arm into the light, the some of the little stars started to vanish. But something else was sitting in their places.  
  
Bugs. Creepy-crawlies. Insects. Vermin. Pests. Whatever you wanted to call them,  _they were all over my arm._  
  
I wanted to freak out. Anyone else would have done so, and I don’t think there’s much argument otherwise. My breath caught in my chest, but it wasn’t the kind of catch that panic brought. This was  _wonder_.  
  
My dreams flashed before my eyes as I fully woke up from my sleep. I could  _feel_ every bug on my body, not just my arm. Each of them was a star, burning in its own way. No two were the same, and I knew exactly which one was which, almost like I had spent a lifetime as an astronomer. Except, every star gazed back at me, echoing my own amazement back at me. Each told me in their own way what they felt, what they heard, everything they knew.  
  
As weak as it sounds, there were no words to describe what it was like, being the focus of an entire swarm. It was like being onstage, but the crowd wasn’t, couldn’t criticize you. I was in charge of their lives, all of them, and I knew with a wave of my hand I could send them out the door, or up the ventilation… or tell them all to die.  
  
_Is this what being a god is like?_  I wondered.  _Is this what being Scion is like? A Hunter-Killer?_  
  
The realization struck me, as hard as any one of Sophia’s shoves or kicks.  
  
_I have powers._  
  
I’m a parahuman.


	6. Simmer 1.6

_January 10th, 2011_  
_Brockton Bay_  
 _3:54 PM_

_Ridley_

I heaved a hearty sigh as I turned the last corner on my walk, now in the home stretch. My feet were aching much less than they had been on Friday, which was a good thing. It meant that whatever bug that  _had_ managed to get through the craptons of various medicines my mother had all but shoved down my throat was finally wearing off.  
  
And hey, if all I had to show for being shoved in a locker and left for dead was a week of being sick, and a few scars on my palms, then I’d say that I got off pretty easy.  
  
I still hadn’t seen hide or hair of that girl who got shoved in the other locker, though. It didn’t seem like anyone particularly  _cared_ that she was missing, either. A name had been missing from roll call during gym class, one that had actually been skipped over once or twice. As things were, it was only that the name had been called out haphazardly that made it stick in my head. What the name was, I couldn’t quite remember, other than ‘Taylor’.  
  
'Taylor' had disappeared like a ghost. For her sake, I hoped she had gotten home, had a thorough bath, then gotten things arranged so she could be homeschooled. Nobody deserved that… I couldn’t in good conscience even call it a ‘prank’. It was beyond bullying. I was pretty sure there were crimes in the Geneva Convention less severe than what had happened.  
  
I strolled up to the apartment building where I lived, key already in hand. The area of Brockton Bay my family lived in was pretty clean as far as gangs went, maybe a pair of thugs passing through once or twice on a really bad day. Still, I never took the chance that one would jump me while I fished a key out of my pocket. A nazi was a nazi was a nazi.  
  
It was the same routine as every day before, practically a checklist of steps to get in. Head around the back, then up the stairs. Try not to smell the mildew. Ignore that it seemed colder inside than out. Unlock the door, step inside. Take a deep breath of clean, warm air.  
  
“Close the stupid effin’ door!”  
  
Get yelled at by my brat of a sister. Try not to mock her for saying ‘effin’’. Actually close the door.  
  
Try not to throttle her.  
  
Small steps.  
  
The kitchen being the first and only room connected to the stairs was the sole reason I couldn’t just collapse then and there. Bar stools do not for a comfy seat make, so I trudged forwards to my room. My sister made some comment as I passed through the living room and in front of the TV, one I made sure to ignore every single time. To this day I could never get over how ridiculous she looks, a little chubby blonde pixie sprawled across a couch that belongs to her in all but name.  
  
Thankfully neither she nor her comments followed me to my room, a cramped and cluttered thing with space for a twin bed, a dresser, and pretty much nothing else. I tossed my backpack down next to my bed, hopped up on top, and let out a huge sigh.  
  
I’d traced the pattern in the ceiling a thousand times before, so what was once more? I didn’t have much better to do at the moment. The teachers were, for once, just as unwilling to work as the students, which meant next to zero homework. The sole exception was the new class I had to switch into, ‘World Problems’, or something like that. I had been in one of Winslow’s few programming classes, but people started dropping like flies once the real work began, and by winter break there were so few that the entire class was just cancelled. I had been lucky to get into one of the few open seats in one of the other classes, but my schedule had been thrown to hell and back before the dust had settled.  
  
Today had been my first with my new classes. The one teacher whose name I managed to hold onto was Mr. Gladly, partially because his name was just so ridiculous. He was pleasant enough, but got caught up in socializing with the kids. That didn’t stop him from giving plenty of work, though. My only assignment for tomorrow was some garbage about third world countries. Something having to do with ‘our obligation to help those overseas’.  
  
My question was this: how were we supposed to help others when the States were literally crawling with supervillains and organized crime?  
  
But that was something for Future Ridley to think about. Present Ridley had decided that a few minutes rotting brain cells away on the internet was more important. A quick reach under my bed and I pulled up my boxy laptop, the one decent item in my possession, and booted it up. A few minutes later, and I was quite busy with everything that wasn’t my homework.

 

***

_6:18 PM_  
  
“... and theah’s a chance the snow will be melted by the end of the week. I wan' you to rake up whatever got stuck unduh theah, unduhstan'?”  
  
I nodded in response, and was shooed away back to my room.  
  
Conversations with my mother usually went like that. She comes home, starts barking orders, once a week throws the groceries on the counter for either me or my sister to put away, goes in the bathroom for a smoke, then maybe makes dinner before crashing.  
  
My life was nothing if not routine.  
  
No groceries, so it was just ‘do this, do that later’, and I was free to go. Honestly, I had drowned out the first half of what she said in a sea of apathy, and if I could help it I wouldn’t be raking anything for at least nine more months. So really, the only thing I had to do was make my own dinner, and try not to suffocate on tobacco fumes.  
  
I wondered every now and then if those cigars were the reason we were still in this apartment. The short answer was ‘maybe, but unlikely’.  
  
There was no way I was going to fit making a full dinner into my schedule, not with how late it was. Seven o’clock was designated leisure time, and I still hadn’t started my assignment for Gladly. So, once again I was going to rely on our lord and savior, the microwave, and our damnation and enemy, TV dinners.

***

 _January 11, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
9:17 AM_  
  
You just had to love it when the class was due to start in less than a minute, and the teacher was nowhere to be seen.  
  
My fingers drummed to a random tune as I waited for Gladly to enter his own class, practically feeling my respect for him drop another notch. Actually, if I thought about it, I wasn't quite sure I blamed him for not wanting to be around the incredibly obnoxious crowd that took his class, but it’s the principle of things. He should have been there before any of us, and been ready to go.  
  
I checked over my assignment one more time, having just printed it out in the school’s library. Atrocious handwriting didn’t lend itself to getting good grades, so pretty much every assignment I had to hand in would be typed up and printed out right before class. Everything seemed to be in place, no spelling errors, no typos, and both pages were in the right order. Still, I wouldn’t be at ease until I handed it in.  
  
I jumped in my seat as the classroom door slammed shut, without anyone on the inside of the doorway. The class fell silent, kids looking at one another in confusion. Gladly never closed the door, they said. Where is he, they asked. Of course, all those questions faded away about as fast as they had arisen as normal conversation restarted. I stopped drumming my fingers and folded my arms instead, watching the door.  
  
A minute passed by. And another. And another. And another. Still no sign of Gladly.  
  
After what must have been at least ten full minutes, the door finally opened. A girl walked in, head bowed and her face obscured by long, curly hair. But that tall and skinny figure was recognizable, even if I hadn’t seen it in over a week.  
  
She half-walked, half-slunk over to an empty desk near the door, more or less allowing her things to fall to the floor as she sat down. I noticed that she still had a few wrappings around her hands, but those alone were the only evidence that she had been injured in the locker.  
  
Mr. Gladly came in only a few seconds after Taylor sat down. The look on his face made it clear he was unhappy about something, and if I was a betting man I’d have said he was talking to Taylor just outside the room. He walked in front of his desk and gazed over the classroom, not so much making eye contact with everyone as much as just sweeping pointlessly.  
  
“I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors by now,” he began, folding his hands in front of himself. He was talking about the recently-returned Taylor, for sure. “About a week ago, Taylor was locked in a locker full of… trash. I don’t have to remind you all that it’s against Winslow policy to bully other students. I really hope I don’t have to tell you that bugging her about it is very discourteous. Clear?”  
  
A chorus of various acknowledgements came up from the class, some more muted than others. Mine was the most muted of all, mostly by virtue of not coming up at all. I was more than a bit upset by the way Gladly downplayed what had happened. He spoke about it like it was just a prank gone a bit too far.  
  
I could’ve said something. Spoken up, told the entire class exactly how bad it had been, started a rumor mill that let the entire school know how awful the entire experience was. What Gladly had said  _paled_ in comparison to what it was really like, even being beside that trash heap instead of inside it. I knew what to say, how to make it sound appropriately dramatic. The indignation that I wanted to speak was entirely real. I could go off like with no one to stop me.  
  
But I didn’t.  
  
Instead I shrank back into my chair.  
  
The pressure of getting up and speaking was too much. It was a pitiful excuse, I knew, but this was… so much different than the locker. It wasn’t a crowd who knew the truth standing around, doing nothing. There wasn’t a spark of anger that finally got me to move, there wasn’t anything.  
  
But to do nothing would be like pretending it didn’t happen, that it really wasn’t that bad. I was better than Mr. Gladly, I knew that much. I was better than at least ninety percent of Winslow, no, all of Brockton Bay. So, it fell to me to help Taylor when nobody else knew how or why they should. I was the only one who could. I was the only one who had been there. But now I had to stop thinking and act.

***

 _11:07 PM_  
  
To say it was a running joke that navigating Winslow during lunch period was like walking through a minefield was a bit inaccurate, since jokes are often somewhat false and tend to be funny more often than not. The saying was truer for some, less for others, depending on whether that person was in a gang or not. It didn’t really matter which you were in, since all three main gangs in the Bay were represented fairly evenly through the school.  
  
Now, for my part, I wasn’t associated with any of those bunches of suicidal idiots. However, I was absolutely white enough for the mistake to be made once, and depending on my choice of company, I might smell bad enough for it to be made twice. No Oriental features though, so at least nobody associated me with the ABB. I was still nervous every time I set foot in the cafeteria. You almost get used to it, but in the same way that you get used to handling fireworks.  
  
Taylor was nowhere to be seen at first glance, which was surprising. Someone like her stuck out in a crowd, so she should have been easy to find. But from my current point just inside the main doors, she may as well have been missing. It took a few minutes of simply waiting and watching before I got even a hint of her.  
  
Far in the back, towards the side exit of the lunchroom, I saw a head of long and messy hair stumble out of the school proper. At least, I thought it was stumbling. A few other people followed her out, though I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features from my position. Hair long enough to imply they were girls was all I could see.  
  
I bit my lip for a moment, debating if I should follow them. I knew  _I_  would freak out if I caught me following me. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea… but then again, my best friend Magnolia had been a girl. I could get along with girls without seeming like a creeper, right? Of course.  
  
I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. Of course I could do this. Just one more friend in the ‘Taylor Support Group’.


	7. Roil 2.1

_January 12th, 2011_  
_Brockton Bay_  
_11: 11 AM_

_Taylor_

Getting through the school day was proving to be a challenge in and of itself.  
  
You’d think having superpowers would open up a whole host of ways to fix my problems, but in reality? Every moment was a chance to use my powers, to let loose, to just  _erase_ every bit of power anyone had over me. And it might have felt just. It might have felt  _right_ , and that was the scary part. I was finding that out extremely quickly.  
  
From the first moment I arrived at school, I could feel every bug in the building and about half a block around me. I was growing used to having almost countless additional eyes and ears around me at all times, but returning to school just took that familiarity and tossed it out the window. Coming back to Winslow was like taking off blinders that I had had on my head my whole life, even taking into account the fact that so many of the bugs I felt were basically sleeping.  
  
When I had actually entered the school, I could literally  _feel_ people’s attention shift to me. I picked up every word they whispered, and knew exactly who was looking, when they were looking, and how hard they tried to hide it. Every bug told me what I didn’t want to know, but I listened anyway.  
  
That was the first real time I was tempted to just let the whole swarm loose.  
  
But I shook off the urge, telling myself I was better than that. I wouldn’t stoop to acting like Sophia, just attacking whatever I felt like. I had to be better than that. So I carried on like I didn’t notice anything, and did my best to not remember every person who whispered about me behind my back. I did my best to not feel like my hands were more tied than ever.  
  
Unfortunately, I had learned a few things about my power since I had been released from the hospital. The first was that I couldn’t really turn off the constant flow of information from the bugs under my control. That wasn’t so bad, because while I couldn’t stop it I could try and ignore it, like any one of my own senses. Second, and on a better note, I noticed that the bugs in my range didn’t drop whatever they were doing to obey me. That was good, as it meant nobody could use some Thinker or Tinker power to just track me by the block of oddly-behaving bugs.  
  
The third, and maybe most important, thing I learned, was that my bugs basically copied my emotions.  
  
I had found  _that_ out over the weekend, as I thought of returning to school. First was the feeling of fear that had all but turned into another panic attack. Following that was anger like I had never felt in my entire life, so much that I had actually punched a hole in my wall. I had stared at it in shock for about ten minutes before I moved my desk to, barely, cover it.  
  
Since then I had done my best to keep my emotions under control. If not for the sake of the wall, then for my hands, which were still wrapped up while my palms finished healing. By some miracle, I had avoided breaking them in my tantrum, which was good for me as it was one less thing to hide from my dad.  
  
Keeping level-headed had been hard, and still was, but I figured if I just kept my head low, and did my best not to think too much, it would be a lot easier to keep myself calm. That was partly the reason why I was walking out the back of the cafeteria. Being in there would have me way too worked up to even think about eating my lunch. Thanks to the additional senses my bugs gave me, it was almost easy to edge around everyone and duck out the back door. By those same senses, I had been learning to track certain people as they moved around.  
  
And just my luck, three… no, four people were following me out.  
  
Every person had a certain profile to them, a combination of smells and sights that allowed me to know who they were through my bugs. That sounds normal, but bugs don’t quite look at the world the way people do. My powers, I guessed, did most of the interpreting between me and my singers, but there was always that little bit of oddness to them that I was having to learn, bit by bit.  
  
Feeling out people with my bugs also had something unique to it, something that wasn’t quite alien, but humans day-to-day don’t think about it. So far I had just called it ‘pressure’. Everyone had one, and the combination of every superhuman sense my bugs had was more foolproof than any ID. A few hours in school wasn’t quite long enough for me to identify the group following me out, but I had a good hunch who they were just by their numbers.  
  
There was no way I was going to move fast enough to run away from them, so I decided to just sit down. My plan wasn’t really a plan at all, just to ignore them until they went away. I couldn’t risk getting myself excited. Nobody deserved what would happen if I got angry with this many insects at my disposal. Well, maybe the Tr-no. Nobody.  
  
“Well, well,well, look who it is.”  
  
_Calm, Taylor. Keep calm. Breathe.  
_  
Emma, Madison, and Sophia surrounded me with practiced ease. Everyone was sticking to their routine, it seemed. Sophia was looking at me with a heavy scowl, while Madison had her impish little grin and Emma smiled like she was meeting a friend. I only glanced at them for half a second before turning my attention to my backpack and tried to fish out my lunch. I barely had a finger on the paper bag before Madison gave the whole pack a little kick, sending its contents spilling out.  
  
I gazed numbly at my lunch as it fell in between Madison and Sophia. I hadn’t even begun to reach for it when Sophia stepped on the bag, crushing the food inside. There wasn’t anything that really suffered for it, but the spirit of the action sent a stab of irritation into me. My swarm heard that irritation, and about three thousand little stars flared as they echoed  _frustration_ back to me.  
  
So, I went from being slightly upset to wanting to watch Sophia’s eyes get  _eaten out of her skull_.  
  
I almost sent the command. Almost. But I took a deep breath, held it, and just sighed, as if I was mildly disappointed. Sophia scoffed and kicked my lunch over to me, another act of spite that almost had me order  _the hair chewed off her scalp_.  
  
Emma made a little ‘aww’ sound, pretending to be upset. “Oh Taylor, just look at your lunch,” she said, crouching down and putting a hand on my shoulder. “That was really mean of Madison, wasn’t it?” Sophia made some noise of disgust and walked away, while Madison just giggled like this was the funniest thing she’d seen all day.  
  
“It’s a little problem of hers, you see,” Emma continued. I wasn’t listening to her, her words weren’t heard by my ears. But a hundred little bugs around us heard her every sound, and all of them eagerly told me what she said in a way I couldn’t block out. “Madison hates bugs, so she kicks them away. Sophia usually has to actually get rid of them for her.” Emma stood back up and tilted her head towards me. “You missed one.”  
  
The athlete turned back around to look at me, still scowling. She glanced to Emma, who looked at her expectantly. The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds before Sophia rolled her eyes and turned back to me. She raised her leg up for a kick, and despite myself I flinched back-  
  
“Excuse me.”  
  
We all looked over at the new voice. Actually, it sounded sort of familiar to me…  
  
Standing just outside the cafeteria exit was a shorter, nerdy-looking guy, dressed in jeans and a zip-up hoodie. His face and body reminded me of Greg, with about half the weight and twice as many showers. His arms were crossed and he glared at the four of us, trying to seem intimidating. It might have worked if he was a bit taller, or a bit more muscled, but it just didn’t have the effect he wanted.  
  
Madison was the first to move, walking over to the newcomer in her usual cutesy, disarming way. “Hi there,” she said, smiling brightly. “What’s the matter?”  
  
To his credit, the boy didn’t stop frowning at her. “You’re bugging Taylor. Stop it.”  
  
Madison tilted her head. “What do you mean?” she asked, using the same innocent tone she always did to avoid getting in trouble. “We’re just talking to our friend here, she’s-”  
  
“I don’t give a single crap what you’re doing,” the boy cut her off, stepping around her and walking up to Sophia. “No locker this time, Hess,” he practically spat. “If you start something, it’ll be two on two-and-a-half. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like those odds.”  
  
Sophia turned to fully face him, and for a few moments the two of them did nothing but size each other up. She had a few inches on the new guy, and a whole lot more muscle. If she started swinging, I didn’t think he would stay up very long. Worse, she might use that as an excuse to start hitting me.  
  
But she didn’t.  
  
By some miracle, Sophia just…  _left_. She gave the guy a bit of a shove as she went, but he didn’t return it. Emma and Madison just watched as their muscle left with shocked expressions. Madison bolted first, all but running after Sophia, while Emma spared one more moment to sneer at me before following suit.  
  
New Guy watched as the Trio disappeared around the school, not dropping his angry posture until they were out of view. But once they were, he all but deflated. He sighed and placed his head in his hands, pretty much just collapsing against the wall. I giggled a bit despite myself as he froze in place, remembering that there was still someone watching him. He looked back over his shoulder at me, offering a small smile as he walked over.  
  
“Hi,” he said, gesturing to me. “You okay?”  
  
It took me a bit to find my voice. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m… they didn’t do anything.”  
  
He looked around at my spilled books and crushed lunch, sighing. “Nothing, huh,” he muttered to himself, then shook his head. “Yeah, I guess it is nothing.” He stood next to me, not saying anything for a while. I didn’t either, and the silence between us lingered a bit more than comfortable.  
  
Eventually, I felt I had to say something. “Thanks.” I looked up at him. “Though you probably shouldn’t have helped me. They’re going to give you hell, now.”  
  
He shrugged. “What can they do? I’m not worried about them.” He paused. “It’s… Taylor, right?”  
  
I immediately became suspicious. Someone comes in to save me from the Trio, and they back off with no issues? Suddenly I had a new friend, who wasn’t worried about what might happen to them? Yeah, I had fallen for this one before.  
  
“Look, asshole,” I stood up, feeling my temper flicker and then  _ignite_ , “You can go tell them this won’t work twice. I fell for the whole ‘mystery friend’ thing once already. So screw off, and leave me alone!”  
  
The guy’s expression was one of surprise. His mouth was hanging open, as if he hadn’t expected me to catch on to the trick. He closed and opened it a few times, looking like a fish out of water. I didn’t plan on waiting for a response, though, so I turned and started to gather up my things.  
  
“Wha… I…” he whispered to himself. Not for the first time I wished my bugs could ignore people as I could. “Don’t you recognize me?”  
  
I stopped, pushing down the urge to _bloat his mouth with a billion stings_. “No, I don’t. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”  
  
There was quiet, except for the zipping of my backpack. Not even two days, and already I had to find a new place to eat my lunch. Sometimes I swore the universe was out to get me. I started walking away from the guy, paying attention to his feel, his pressure, so I could avoid him in the future.  
  
“I watched them pull you out of the locker!” he shouted after me. “I was right in front of you, how do you not remember!?”  
  
I froze.Turned around. He was looking at me like a kicked puppy.  
  
I sighed and walked back. I was going to regret this.

***

_1:47 PM  
_

_Ridley_

I was still rolling things around in my head hours later, trying to make sense of everything I had found out. Taylor had been anything but welcoming after I had seen the other three girls off. It wasn’t entirely my fault, as it turned out, but as I played the whole situation over in my head for the umpteenth time, there were definitely a few things that I could have done better. Figuring out if she had been bullied before, that would have been a good one. It was unlikely that information would have allowed me to head off the whole ‘false friend’ thing, but it could have been useful.  
  
And  _that_ whole explanation had gotten me irritated quite a bit. Who even pretends to be someone's friend, anyway? And then they just dump them for a ‘better’ crowd? That was just despicable. Drifting apart was one thing, but...  
  
But in the end, everything worked out more or less how I hoped. I had made… not exactly friends, but at least acquaintances with Taylor, who definitely needed one. Several, actually. I’d never seen anyone so alone before, it was almost unbelievable.  
  
A bit of coaxing was necessary, but I managed to exchange numbers with her. She had been uneasy about doing so, and I didn’t blame her, but I made the argument that we had both been stuck in lockers, and maybe we would need somebody to talk to about it. I guess it struck a chord, because I walked away with a new number tucked firmly in my pocket. Having it in a phone would have been nice, but that wasn’t in the cards for the foreseeable future.  
  
Regardless, since lunch I had busied myself to figure out ways to help Taylor with… basically anything I could think of. It was far more engaging than school, that was for sure. I thought of visiting her, seeing how she was getting along after leaving the hospital. I dismissed that one almost immediately, as it seemed a little too familiar, too soon. Then I changed the question from what  _could_ I do, to what  _should_ I do?  
  
I came up blank, unfortunately. People were pains to deal with, too unpredictable.  
  
“Mr. Steiner?”  
  
I blinked and sat up in my chair. “Yes, Mr. Giardini?” A few other students around me chuckled.  
  
My biology teacher tapped the board with a long metal pointer, where he had drawn a cell. He was looking at me expectantly, his pointer tapping steadily on a small blot inside the illustration.  
  
“Uh, vacuole,” I said. “Stores materials, like food or waste.”  
  
Mr. Giardini nodded, frowning a little beneath his moustache. “Correct. Please pay attention, Mr. Steiner, I’m not repeating this lesson again.”  
  
I scoffed, mostly to myself, as Giardini immediately turned away and starting grilling the other students on what they didn’t know, and should have by this point. I wasn’t doing poorly and he knew that, he was just keeping up appearances. Or maybe he just wanted to hear a correct answer for once. It was still annoying, regardless.  
  
My notebook was currently open to a blank page. I had intended to write down solid ideas that could help Taylor, but so far, it was empty. The only real good idea I had was to- _dammit, where are they all coming from!?_  
  
I slapped my neck, hard. There was nothing to be seen on my hand when I pulled it back, but the fly that I was sure had been irritating me for the past five minutes buzzed in my face for a second before flying away. The number of insects that were bugging me was starting to get a little too high for one day.  
  
Shaking my head, I looked back at my notebook. Still blank, unfortunately, and no ideas burst into my head no matter how much I wanted them to. My fingers started drumming on my desk absently, tapping out some melody I didn’t care to place.  
  
The rest of the class passed fairly quickly, and 2PM came all too soon. The end-of-day bell buzzed over the loudspeaker, and before Giardini could so much as blink the room was half-empty. I caught him yelling over the commotion of moving bodies that there was some such assignment on whatever page, not really paying attention to him.  
  
It was just a short walk down the hallway to my locker in order to pick up my books for the night’s homework. I silently wished in my head that there would be no ‘pranks’ waiting for me, as I really didn’t want to go through last week all over again. I had no idea how long Taylor had been getting bullied for, but something had to lead up to that whole stunt with her getting locked away. I really didn’t need any of that.  
  
So, it was with only mild surprise that I picked up a small, folded paper that fell out of my locker the moment I opened it. I probably would have tossed it back in, to be forgotten for all time, if not for the fact that my name was clearly written on the outside in some female’s near-perfect cursive. On the other side was ‘Taylor’, stamped in red ink and all capital letters. Curiosity got the best of me, and I opened the letter to read it.  
  
_Ridley,  
  
Your actions have consequences.  
  
Signed,  
???_  
  
I blinked.  
  
Then I rolled my eyes and tore the paper up, letting the pieces float to the ground. Who even wrote threat letters? Didn’t they know they were just warnings to the person you were after?  
  
In this particular case, there wasn’t even much of a mystery regarding who wrote the letter in the first place. Those three girls that were tormenting Taylor earlier were the obvious choices. One of them I knew, that being Sophia Hess, but I wasn’t sure of the names of the other two. Emily and Margaret, if I wasn’t mistaken.  
  
Whatever. If they wanted to throw a spitball, call a name or two, that was fine. Helping Taylor was well worth it. They were just girls anyway, as a rule they didn’t get physical. Anything they decided to throw at me had been done before, I could almost guarantee it. Even if they threw me in a locker, been there, done that.  
  
Paying no more mind to what  _might_ happen, I refocused on my task at hand. I certainly knew what  _would_ happen if my marks dropped this semester, and I did not want to face that anytime soon. All books and supplies accounted for, I closed my locker and started on the long way home.

***

_6:52 PM  
_

_Taylor_

Dad and I ate quietly in the living room, sitting side by side on the couch. There was nothing fancy about dinner itself, just chips and sandwiches. What was special was that we were both sitting together, and we were together. Dinner like this was becoming… regular. I didn’t want to say ‘normal’, because I wasn’t sure that things were going to continue like this for very long.  
  
It was nice while it was lasting, though. Dad would greet me when he came home like he hadn’t in years, with a smile. He would ask about my day, how I was doing, things like that. And the best part of it all was he actually wanted to know, that nothing he said was idle chatter. Things were honestly getting better.  
  
_Figures that it took an overnight stay in a biohazard container and a whole week spent in the hospital to get anything more than apathy from anyone._  
  
Suppressing the urge to  _scream yell accuse_  was easier than it had been all day, I noted. All it took was crushing a chip to so much salt and powder in my fist. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, letting out a deep sigh as the flash of rage, intense but fleeting, faded away. That anger was followed by a queasiness that sent my stomach churning, accompanied by one emotion I always hated feeling.  
  
Guilt.  
  
_It’s not his fault_ , I reminded myself for the umpteenth time.  _He wasn’t the one who put me in… there. He couldn’t have known._  
  
“Taylor?” he asked, looking at me with a hint of confusion. “Are you okay? You’ve been staring at your food for the past five minutes.”  
  
I took another breath, deep and slow. “I’m… fine, Dad.” A lie. “Just thinking about an upcoming project.” Another lie. I didn’t even realize that those two sentences came from me until I had already said them. Was it so easy that I could do it without even meaning to?  
  
He smiled at me, and it was all I could do to disguise the involuntary retch as a cough. “Alright. Let me know if you need help with it, will you?” He took another bite of his sandwich, still faintly smiling like nothing was wrong. Like he didn’t even know I was lying to him.  
  
My stomach was too uneasy at this point to keep eating. Without a word, a got up and tossed the rest of my dinner, left the plate on the counter and headed upstairs to my room. I was breathing deeply the whole time, trying to calm myself. The world tilted a little more with each inhale that just brought more weakness to my limbs. My legs gave out the moment I closed my door, letting me slowly slide down to the floor.  
  
_Nervous.  
  
Anxiety.  
  
Panic._  
  
Breathing heavily became breathing lightly and quickly. My head felt like it was in a vice, slowly squeezing both my skull and eyes, clamping down until I couldn’t see more than floor underneath me. I was outright panting, when had it become so hot? Why was it so humid? I was sweating, I could feel it, could  _feel_ my clothes sticking like tape wrapped around me.  
  
This was my fault, I knew it. This was payback for lying to my Dad. For spying on that guy, Ridley? For everything even the things I didn’t know I did  _why does it hurt so much I feel awful why is this happening why won’t it stop it’s so hot in here can’t breath air is too thick no stop go away don’t come near me he’ll know he’ll know I lied to him just stay away why won’t you just go away why why why why why why WHY WHY WHY_

***

 _In.  
  
Out.  
  
In.  
  
Out.  
  
In… _  
  
… and finally, I was able to let out a third set of breaths without collapsing back to hyperventilating.My head still ached, but there was no more feeling of being crushed to go with it.  
  
Moving from my huddle on the ground was... gross. Apparently I had been sweating for some time. I felt just a bit sore all over, despite not having really moved in the entire time I had been panicking.  
  
Did I really have a panic attack? How much time had passed since it started?  
  
My bugs said that it hadn’t been long, but I wasn’t sure I trusted their reports in the middle of the night, when by all rights most of them should have been asleep.  
  
Thankfully, they had followed my commands to stay away from my house, as the last thing I needed was the emotional roller coaster that explaining my powers to my Dad would be.  
  
After losing control of my emotions like that, I felt… numb. I wasn’t angry, or fearful anymore. I would have said that felt good, but if I was being honest it didn’t feel like much of anything. How long that would last was anyone’s guess.  
  
For the first time ever, I think I was grateful for not having developed many ‘female assets’. That was one less piece of clothing I had to throw off once I finally pulled myself off the floor. I tried not to shiver as my now cold, damp clothes were peeled off my skin and thrown weakly at my hamper.  
  
I left my room, staggering towards the shower and only faintly recognizing the sound of the TV downstairs. I was pretty sure that I was cold, almost freezing as I walked down the hall. Although I saw goosebumps on my arms and legs, I didn’t feel the cold, I didn’t shiver. I nearly tripped over the threshold into the bathroom. My legs almost gave out for the second time that night as I stepped into the shower, shaking just enough for me to be aware of it, but I made it in.  
  
I closed my eyes, and let the hot water wash over me. That, I felt. It didn’t feel  _good_ , per se, but it felt  _better_. It was better than going to bed covered in sweat. Better than having a… a…  
  
I shivered despite the hot water. I was so tired. After this shower, I was going straight to bed. I didn’t want to be awake any longer. It was too much. Too much stress, too much emotion.  
  
I wiped my eyes of tears I only just realized were there.


	8. Roil 2.2

_January 14th, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
8: 52 AM

_Ridley_

“Oh, that’s just gross.”

“You’re a creep, you know that?”

“Fucking creeper.”

“Who does that anymore?”

“No wonder nobody likes him.”

Points for resourcefulness were definitely due, despite how many were being taken away for cliché. The last thing I was expecting to find when I opened my locker this morning was a pair of sweaty shorts with the emblem of Winslow’s track team emblazoned on the side. Thankfully, I was the only one who could see that the letters ‘SH’ written on the tag. The sheer scumminess of stealing from one of the sports teams was damage enough, but appearing to steal from a girl would cross the line into territory I would  _never_ get to leave.

I balled up the shorts and crammed them into my backpack, making a mental note to toss them in the dumpster after school. The silver lining here was that nothing else in my locker had been touched, but I was going to have to do something about the lock. Regardless of how Hess had gotten in, there would be no repeats.

People continued to mumble around me while I finished switching books for the next class. Their words were lost in the din of the other passing students, but I could fill in the blanks of what they were saying without guessing too hard. Opinion of me would drop to an all-time low after this, but that wasn’t really saying much. Reputation only matters if you care about it, after all.

The bell rang just as I slipped into my next class, the programming course I had just barely been able to take. Not for the first time, I lamented that I didn’t share this class with anyone. I was always the one people turned to because they were too lazy to try and understand the basic principles of the class. Judging by the day thus far, though, I was hopeful that this would be one period without interruptions. I couldn’t trust people to be able to handle their issues, but I could trust that, at the moment, they hated me more than their coursework.

The teacher for this class was a short, pudgy man with little hair to spare, but a pleasant enough attitude for being where he was. Mr. Davis was his name, I remembered, and if rumors were true he had a thing for the other computer teacher, Ms. Knott. I felt bad for him, simply because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who could get a date, but I wished him well on principle.

Mr. Davis waddled into the classroom, and gave us our assignment within minutes. The whole fifteen seconds that took was his allotted interaction time with his students, and that suited me just fine. Four out of five days were like this, with only Mondays being the ones he would actually teach. I could spend my time blazing through his assignments, then do basically whatever I wanted on the internet.

So, I cracked my fingers and set to work.

***  


With only ten minutes left in the class, I hopped over to my school email to send the day’s work to Mr. Davis. It took me a moment to remember the long and tedious address and password for the account, one that I never really committed to memory. I tried a few combinations of different info, and sure enough I got in after the fourth try.  
  
Only, there was a surprise for me when the inbox finally loaded up over the rustic connection. A few dozen surprises, as it happened. A whole mess of unofficial emails, each addressed to me as some sort of hate-mail. It was kind of funny, if I was being honest. And a little upsetting, too, that someone hated me enough for this kind of activity. A 70-30 mix, I’d say.  
  
I skimmed through a few of the emails, more out of curiosity than anything. It was actually pretty generic. Well, it was as generic as I imagined generic hate-mail would be. Maybe this was thought-out and unique, I had no idea. It didn’t really matter anyway, as there wasn’t anything in the actual email that told me who it came from. Granted, I didn’t look too hard, but whatever.  
  
A few clicks later, and the emails were gone like they never even existed. A couple more clicks after that, and my assignment was on its way.  
  
I sat back in my chair and smiled. Honestly, had hate mail ever worked on anyone? I mean, maybe back in the days where sending it meant someone had put a whole lot of effort and money into telling you how much they hated you. Maybe that would be a little upsetting. But nowadays, where it was easy and free to do so?  
  
I chuckled and pulled up some online forums. Now here was some real hate…

***

_11:09 AM_

_Taylor_

  
No matter how much I tried to will myself not to, I ended up all but sprinting through Winslow’s halls the moment the lunch bell rang. I couldn’t be inside for lunch if I wanted any peace, I just  _couldn’t_. I had to get out, out of class, out of the building, away from the horrible teachers and the horrible people just  _out_.  
  
Other students snickered and laughed as I ran past them. I didn’t focus on them, didn’t focus on what they were saying, what I knew they were thinking.  
  
“There goes the freak.”  
  
“Got a hot date? Of course not.”  
  
“What a loser.”  
  
_Just get out, Taylor._  
  
Get out get out get out out out outoutoutoutoutout  
  
I was breathing harder than just running had made me. Terror gripped my heart gently and then squeezed, because of course I was afraid why wouldn’t I be afraid there were people everywhere and they all sneered and laughed and I just had to get away-  
  
And then I was through the doors, and the terror started to fade, just a little.  
  
I leaned on the wall, just trying to catch my breath, ignoring the fresh gang sign that was running down the side of the brick wall and soaking into my sweater because of  _course it was why did I have to lean against this wall of all walls and damn it all!_  
  
A thousand little chitters back  _damn it all hate it all kill it-_  
  
No!  
  
No.  
  
I slumped to the ground, started counting to myself.  _Deep breaths, one… two… three… four…_  
  
By ten I stopped, because I was getting too dizzy. In the most calm, sedate way I could, I cursed my powers for doing this to me. And like every other time, they cursed me back. It was like playing ‘Simon Says’ with an entire city. Mindless repetition, all the time. But I  _felt_ the repeats, every single one of them, as if they were my own words.  
  
My eyes started to drift shut. I got so tired after being… like that. Afraid, and then angry, and then just tired.  _Exhausted_. I wondered if this was what people always got like when they had a rush. When their  _normal_ emotions sent them into a terrified spiral, and all they could do was run. When they  _didn’t_ have an echo chamber built into their heads.  
  
I absently wondered if I could have my bugs eat me. Just eat me alive, leave nothing left. Or would they stop when I died, would that stop me from controlling them? I tugged on a few streams of bugs, telling them to come to me. There were mostly just flies, as all of the really dangerous bugs had died in droves before winter even came. But even though it took a few extra seconds, an eternity for the bugs themselves, I had some hornet queens shake off their hibernation, and come crawling. Ladybugs slept in a few houses surrounding the school, but spread their wings and took to the sky when I called. A few spiders crept off out of their hiding places, and joined the swarm that began flowing towards me.  
  
From the many, many cracks in Winslow, bugs started to pour out. At some point I had shifted back up against the wall, and letting myself slide down to the ground as the swarm grew. I cupped my hands, directing a few of the biggest, meanest insects I could find to gather in my palms. I sat there, staring at them, feeling their sleepiness that mirrored my own but wasn’t, the simmering anger that was mine but was held down just as much. It was amazing how creatures so small still felt things, even if it was different than people…  
  
I jumped when the door opened, almost crushing my bugs in my hands and making them panic just as much me and  _oh god who was it oh_.  
  
“Not really the best thing when you can find someone by following the laughter,” Ridley commented, frowning not quite at me but kind of. The sentence was barely out of his mouth when his jaw dropped, and he froze in place. I could smell the fear why can I smell it how did he sneak up on me-  
  
I noticed all my bugs had been drawn closer to me when I panicked. Some were quite visibly crawling around under my clothes. It didn’t freak me out, which made no sense because it always has, but this time it was like running my hands over myself, only Ridley could see it.  
  
_He saw my powers._  
  
Shit.  
  
Before I could even sort my thoughts out, he mumbled “That is either the coolest or the scariest thing I have ever seen.”  
  
My jaw flapped like a fish because that was the absolute last thing I expected to hear. He didn’t scream or run when he saw the freaky bug girl who really was a freak now  _no don’t think like that_  but he was still there _not the time for this-_  
  
“Uh,” I stuttered, just to say something. “Please don’t tell anyone.”  
  
Ridley stepped fully out of the door. He did this weird thing, where he made a fist and hit his chest with it. He flinched as he did, and I tried not to laugh because he clearly hit himself harder than he meant to. But, his face stayed serious the whole time. “On my honor, I swear it.”  
  
… Okay, then.  
  
He stood like that for a while, mostly rigid except for shivering in the crisp winter air. I only realized I was cold myself when I saw  _him_ being cold, but I was so stressed out I couldn’t find it in me to care.  
  
Ridley finally coughed and let his hand down. We just... stared at one another, nobody saying anything, or doing anything. The bugs under my clothes were even more still than I was, not even twitching their antennae. It occurred to me that if something surprised me I might have had one of the hornets sting me, or had a spider bite me just out of shock. That in mind, I tell any bug with venom to  _get away_.  
  
“Uh, Taylor,” he says, taking a very slow step back. “It’s cool that you’re the bug whisperer and everything, but is that really safe?”  
  
Bug whisperer? Really? “It’s… it’s fine,” I mumble, knowing that nothing about this situation was really fine. “They’re totally under control. They… they won’t sting me, unless I tell them to.”  
  
He gave me a weird look. There were gears turning in his head, as Dad would say, you could see the smoke coming out. He had this puzzled expression, his face all scrunched up, until the moment something hit him. He flinched back suddenly, looking like I just swung at him. “Oh shit, you’re a parahuman.”  
  
_What_.  
  
“What did you  _think_ I was?” A couple hundred bugs had gathered around me in the few seconds since he came outside, and even discounting the ones skittering away there was still a sizable horde. It looked like a big puddle of legs and exoskeletons, with a girl stuck in the middle.  
  
Ridley flushed as I ask the question. “I, uh,” he swallowed. “I thought you worked at, uh…” He trailed off, mumbling something about reptiles and a birthday party, and avoided looking back for a few moments. I took the time to stand up and look around, trying to find a decent place to sit and eat my lunch.  
  
There was a clap as Ridley did a double facepalm. It was starting to feel a little awkward with him having a mini freakout, so I edged away from him just a bit. He noticed, though, and quickly dropped his hands into his pockets. “Sorry, I... That is, I didn’t think I’d ever actually meet anyone with, uh, powers.”  
  
I blinked in surprise. “You know Brockton Bay has one of the highest cape counts in America, right?” That’s actually one of the few things I learned from Mr. Gladly’s class, and something I was surprised at. Ridley apparently hadn’t known that, because he gave me a blank look before sighing deeply and rolling his shoulders.  
  
“No I didn’t”, he said, sounding annoyed. “I didn’t really care to learn anything beyond the main streets when I moved here.”  
  
Silence fell between us for a few seconds. Ridley very pointedly didn't look at me for the whole time, not until he had taken a few deep breaths of his own.  
  
He continued speaking, but still didn’t quite make eye contact with me. “Anyway. I was… wondering if there was anything I could do for you. Some non-hostile company, if nothing else.”  
  
My knee-jerk reaction was to tell him off. He was being way too friendly, and a little pushy about being nice to me. There was no way it wasn’t an act, nobody had been even remotely nice to me besides Dad for… yeah, years. Except for that one girl, last year, that did the whole ‘fake friend’ thing, but way better than Ridley was doing it.  
  
An idea came to mind. I bet I could head this off before it even started. “Give me a piece of paper,” I told him, fishing a pencil out of my bag. He gave me a weird look, but rooted around in his own bag without question. I was expecting a ‘why’ at the very least, but he just went along with it. Then I remembered the choir surrounding us, and I realized he was afraid enough to not ask questions.  
  
I still wasn’t used to the idea of having powers. It was still a surreal thing, but I made a mental note to start thinking of them more often. Situations like this could be avoided if I just kept a better handle on myself.  
  
Ridley handed me one of his notebooks, open to a blank page. I started to write down my address, then stopped. I wondered if maybe that wasn’t a good idea, but then I remembered that Emma knew it anyway. If  _they_ wanted him to show up on my doorstep I wouldn’t be able to stop that. Then I remembered I have powers  _stop forgetting Taylor you could stingbiteeat-_  
  
Deep breaths.  _In, out. In, out._  
  
I finished writing down my address and handed the notebook back. Ridley read the large print a few times, looked to me, then looked back to the notebook. “This is…?”  
  
He really didn’t know. Small blessings, then.  
  
“Meet me there, five on Sunday morning,” I told him. He blanched a little bit, but I continued before he could say anything. “Meet me there, and I’ll tell you how you can help me. If you don’t, I’ll…”  _stingbiteeat no stop that_ “... well, do you like lice?”  
  
I didn’t wait for a response. Instead I just stood up and walked away, leaving Ridley there to think about whether he should really be helping the Trio. I smiled to myself, wondering exactly how many little hair-eaters I could gather up in a weekend.  
  
Then out of nowhere, the thought hit me that Ridley could just go to the PRT. He’d be safe and sound, and I’d be rounded up and ‘invited’ to join the Wards.  
  
Then I realized that I had effectively just told the Trio I’m a cape.  
  
_Fuck_.

***

 _6:22 PM_  
  
I’d lost my nerve to tell Dad what was happening, by this point. He wasn’t home, and I’d been stewing in indecision for hours. I was still sitting on the sofa, waiting for him to walk in the front door. A coin had been flipped no less than a dozen times to decide if I should actually tell him about my powers, one I swore had come up ‘tell’ more often than not.  
  
I was getting hungry, too. It wasn’t that I couldn’t cook for myself, box of pasta was easy enough to make. But there was the feeling of restlessness just lingering in every limb, and I didn’t trust myself to not fidget myself into a burn, or cut myself on a knife or something equally embarrassing. I just wanted Dad to be home.  
  
Actually, maybe not right that second. I had a hundred or so bugs spread across the coffee table, using them to test my power. Moving in formation, seeing how fast I could pick each one of them out, what they did if I left them alone, things like that. I was learning a bunch of things that way, and it was slightly calming, in a way.  
  
For one, I’ve learned that it doesn’t make much difference what a bug is doing, how old it is, or anything like that. If it’s a bug, if it has a whole bunch of legs, I can control it like it’s just another hand, or an arm, or something like that. The following realization, that there doesn’t seem to be any sort of cap on how many I can order around, comes right before I remember that I do actually have a maximum range. One weird thing about my powers is that I know exactly how many bugs I have under control at any time, and that number was rising daily.  
  
I knew I could ‘feel’ people through my bugs, along with the ‘pressure’ specific to them. I hadn’t tried actually tracking people by that, though I had tried to track Ridley by putting a bug on him and remembering that specific bug. That fell apart the moment he went out of range, so it wasn’t that useful. Still, it was something.  
  
I was just starting to manipulate extremely specific parts of my bugs when the few I had placed outside sang to me, the song of an aging truck as it came down the road. The bugs didn’t know the truck, but I could tell whose it was by the noise of it alone. I half-panicked, half-laughed in relief as Dad pulled into the driveway. I sent my little singers scattering, telling them to wait downstairs and in the woodwork until I called for them again.  
  
They didn’t eat each other unless I told them to, too. That was a nice side effect, it made sure that placing hornets next to fruit flies wouldn’t shrink my swarm.  
  
The few moments that Dad took to actually get out of his truck and come inside were incredibly tense for me. I wasn’t looking at the front door, but I could feel him moving, feel him coming closer. He… smelled tired? Some of the senses my bugs had didn’t translate cleanly to human senses. It was like a smell, but also a taste, and something… else.  
  
It didn’t take any of those bug senses to tell me he was tired when he finally got to the front door, and took a good fifteen seconds to actually unlock it. “Hey kiddo,” he greeted me as he came in, mumbling more than actually saying it. I turned around on the sofa and waved softly to him, trying my best to smile sincerely.  
  
“Hey Dad,” I said. “Long day at the office?”  
  
He winced.  _Way to go, Taylor._  
  
“Something like that,” he responded, moving into the kitchen. “I know it’s kind of late, did you eat?”  
  
I frowned to myself. That really wasn’t something I wanted him worrying about, but, “No, I didn’t. I was waiting for you.”  
  
He looked over his shoulder and smiled at me. “Thanks, Taylor, but next time don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself, okay?”  
  
_Trying, Dad._ “Alright.” I sit back down, thinking to myself. Just a few words, right here, and I could lay everything out for him. I could let just a little bit of this weight off my shoulders, let someone know about my powers on  _my_ terms.  
  
I looked back into the kitchen, at my father who was hunched over the sink. He was just standing there, arms spread to hold himself up. A flare of irritation came up, and was fanned into a blaze by a hundred hundred winged bellows, then ate up  _everything how dare he look tired does he know how much of a hell my life is I’m the one who’s tired not him I suffer every day because he’s not good enough-_  
  
I didn’t even finish the thought before I jumped up and run upstairs, ignoring Dad’s call behind me.

***

_6: 57 PM_

_Danny_

Daniel Hebert was not having the best of days.  
  
It had started with a number of fellow dockworkers handing in their resignations, having found employment elsewhere. ‘Über and Leet’, they had said. Of all places to find work, they decided to go work for Über and Leet. Danny couldn’t believe his ears when he heard it, and still couldn’t believe it now.  
  
Well, maybe he could. But the day he admitted that helping two villains with a web show was better than honest working on the docks was the day the whole Dockworker’s Association fell apart. So while he could maybe understand it, he would never see it as a legitimate alternative.  
  
One thing he  _couldn’t_ understand was his daughter.  
  
Taylor had once been a little firecracker, bursting with life and shining as the second light that illuminated his life. But Annette's near-death had sapped nearly all of that light away, leaving a three-person family short one. But eventually, little Taylor had come back from that. She wasn't quite the same, nobody would be, but unlike her father she didn't let tragedy weigh down the rest of her life.  
  
Then high school came, and the rest of Taylor's light disappeared.  
  
It was sudden. That should have been Danny's first hint. But too caught up in his own grief, he never saw the signs that she needed him. Signs that were so clear in hindsight. She stopped coming home with a smile. Her day was always 'fine'. She  _never_ talked about Emma. That was the biggest thing, right there. But there were other, little hints, here and there.  
  
He suspected so many things, at first. But they were all normal, ordinary high school things. Perhaps she had doe-eyes for some boy. Maybe a class wasn't going well. At worst, well... he was ashamed to admit he had gone through her room one morning while she was showering, looking for drugs. None had turned up, and that was one suspicion he was happy to be rid of.  
  
The thought had crossed his mind to simply ask her. Crossed, then left. He had always been of the opinion that it was better for people to come to you when they were good and ready, and should be left alone until then. That had worked in the Association, it had mostly worked in his marriage barring one incident, and up until now he had assumed it was working with his child.  
  
Then  _that_ incident had happened, and Danny's life was turned upside down.  _Again_.  
  
He didn't tell Taylor about the phone calls. He didn't tell her about the mail. He didn't tell her about the emails. And he most certainly didn't tell her about the officers that had appeared at the Association that day, asking some  _very_ specific questions.  
  
Danny didn't consider himself a stupid man. Certainly, such a man couldn't do the job he had. But he wondered sometimes if the universe was playing a cruel joke on him, teasing him with bits of information, bits of truth. That alone was joke enough, but that they had vanished almost as quickly as they appeared? Either Danny needed to get his head checked, or there was something going on.  
  
Something that-  
  
The phone started ringing.  
  
Danny flinched despite himself. Years later, and still he couldn’t stop being twitchy whenever he heard a phone go off. That included at the office, and he had gotten quite good at grabbing his office phone before it could get so much as a second ring off.  
  
But this was his own house, and at the end of a long day he just wasn’t moving as fast as he might have earlier. So the phone was allowed to cycle its irritating, depressing ring for a few moments, just enough to get Danny’s nerves up for when he pulled the receiver off the hook and answered with a tight “Hello, Hebert residence.”  
  
“Hiii, Mistah Hebeht?” came the high-pitched, droning voice of someone born and raised in either Boston or Providence. “This is Elizabeth Steinah, Ridley’s motha’, how ah you?”  
  
Danny pursed his lips, mulling over how the woman’s name was actually supposed to be pronounced before he responded. “Ah, Ms… Steiner. I don’t think I’ve met your son. Do you have the right number?”  
  
“Oh, Ah’m sahrry,” the woman continued, in that grating accent Danny did his level best not to cringe at. “Ridley said he knew ya daughtah, Taylah. He said she wanted to meet with him eahly on Sunday. I was just wondrin’ if they were meetin’ at yah house.”  
  
Danny blinked in surprise. So there was a boy, after all. And they were planning on meeting up? Not without his knowledge. “Ah, no, Ms. Steiner, I didn’t… Taylor hadn’t said anything to me. I only came home a little while ago, you see, we haven’t sat down yet…”  
  
“Oh that’s fiiine Mistah Hehbeht, I just wanted tah make shuah you knew, since it’s so eahly and all.” Danny grimaced to himself. How early was she talking, here? And more importantly, what were this ‘Ridley’ and his daughter supposed to be getting up to? “Okay, so my son is very punctual, so he should be at yah house about quawtah o’ five. Would you mind callin’ me when he gets theah?”  
  
“Of course, Ms. Steiner. I’m afraid I don’t have your number, though…”  
  
“Oh that’s fine, Ridley says he gave Taylah ow’ numbah,” Elizabeth droned on. “Just gimme a call on Sunday. Thanks, g’bye now.”  
  
She hang up without another word.  
  
Danny slowly drew the phone away from his ear, and stared at the piece of plastic like it was some bizarre fruit. Eventually, he shook his head and hung it back up, making his way up the stairs. Dinner could wait, he had to speak with Taylor.

***

_7:01 PM_

_Ridley_

“I don’t understand why you’re so uptight about this,” I said without thinking, as my mother hung up the phone with a tight scowl on her face.  
  
True to form, she turned and glared at me, arms folding across her chest. “I was yah age too, once,” she reminded me, “I know how you boys ah. God fahbid you meet a girl like I was at yah age, you two’d be up to trouble in a hahtbeat.”  
  
“Mom, when have I ever gotten into trouble? With anyone?”  
  
“Nevah,” she admitted, tilting her head. “Butcha gettin’ tah that age weah yah head’s doin’ awl the thinkin’, and I don’t mean tha one on yah shouldaz.”  
  
I tried not to laugh at that expression. Definitely one to remember. “She probably wants help with a school project or something. Two… minds are better than one, and all that.”  
  
“Mhmm, ‘cause I didn’t try that one too. Listen, so long as nothin’ happens, I’m fine. But if I heah anythin’ from Mistah Hebeht or his daughtah, I’ll cut it off an’ bury it in Saint Mary’s cemetary, got me?”  
  
I paled a bit and tried very hard not to imagine what that what feel like. “Got you.”  
  
She turned away and waved her hand, letting me know I was dismissed. Good old Mom, always up for a word of encouragement and reassurance.  
  
I left my mother alone in the kitchen and went to my room, ignoring my sister’s cries of irritation as I walked in front of the screen, and the following yelling of my mother for her to shut up. That quickly escalated into a shouting match, and closing my door did little to block it out.  
  
My laptop was sitting on my bed, still running. On the screen were a number of browser tabs, on PHO, various cape sites and an online map of Brockton Bay. Next to the computer were a couple of textbooks and notebooks, to at least give the illusion I was doing schoolwork. But if I was being honest, this seemed just a bit more important than making the teachers of Winslow stay off my back.  
  
If nothing else, at least I’d have a say on Brockton Bay’s newest parahuman.


	9. Roil 2.3

_January 16, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
4:38 AM 

_Taylor_

I was dressed and ready to go while it was still horribly early in the morning. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and still the air was cold enough that you could've said it was the middle of the night, and I’d have believed you. A pair of old sweatpants short enough to be above my ankles, and an even older shirt that has some stains on it were all I could find to spare, but I hoped the short fit would pay off later when I was hot and sweating. The only part of my outfit I was worried about was my glasses, which were probably going to bounce around on my face the entire time. There was nothing I could really do about it, though.  
  
Waiting for Ridley put me on edge, but I was  _just_ able to keep that energy from sparking off and going out of control. It was a close thing, but actively ordering my bug choir not to start echoing back at me is keeping them from doing so. I wasn’t sure it would actually work, but I was glad it did. With a clear head, I could feel for Ridley more easily, though I wasn't sure I really expected him to show up.  
  
Once more in my head, my routine was gone over. I wasn’t planning on running too far, for two reasons. First, I was just starting out. There was no way I would be able to run five miles in my current state, no matter how much I pushed myself. Second, I’d stay in a decent neighborhood, or at least as decent as the Bay got. There would be plenty of people around, so between that and my powers there was next to no risk of anything happening to me.  
  
My singers started whispering to me, mimicking my own impatience.  _What am I even waiting for_ , I wondered.  _There’s no point in holding this off, I know he’s not going to show._  With one last to check to make sure my sweatpants were cinched tight around my waist, I opened the front door and head outside.  
  
The frigid air smacked me full in the face the moment I was out, raising goosebumps all over my skin. The least enjoyable part of these runs was definitely going to be the start, I concluded. I took unsteady steps down the stairs, shivering so badly I almost forgot to jump over the bottom step. I didn’t forget, but the sheer surprise that hit me when Ridley stepped into my range did throw me off enough that I stumbled and barely avoided falling.  
  
A pair of recently-awoken mosquitoes were under my control, and one happened to be close enough to him that I could smell his tired heated anxious meatbloodfood-  
  
That thought was clamped down on and thrown out. I didn’t even know where it came from in the first place, but that didn’t matter. It got tossed, along with every other thought and feeling from the mosquito, like hitting ‘Delete’ on a computer.  
  
I shook my head and looked down the street, where Ridley was just coming around the corner. I could’ve sworn he was at least another block away… That was just something else to figure out, though. What good were my powers if they left me just standing around like a bump on a log?  
  
I stepped out onto the sidewalk, grimacing as he started flagging me down. I noticed that he dressed almost the same way as I did, although his clothes fit much better and were stain-free, even his sneakers.  
  
“Morning Taylor,” he greeted as he walked up to me. He was panting lightly, and already I could tell he was tired. “I’m here, just like you asked. I am off the hook for the biblical swarm, now?”  
  
I took a moment to study him, and decided to play along. “Not yet.” I pointed down the street, in the opposite direction from where he came. “We’re running two miles around the neighborhood. If you make it the whole way, then we’re square.”  
  
He made a humming noise. “Two miles? That’s not too far. Why are we running this early in the morning, anyway?”  
  
“Cape training,” I answered. “My powers aren’t that good if I have to actually fight someone. If I can, I’d rather just run away.” I paused, then added, “Plus it’s a good habit. Healthy living and all that.”  
  
“Alright,” he sighed. “You’re the boss, I guess. The bug boss.” He suddenly brightened up and snapped his fingers. “Oh, that might be a good one. Do you… mind, if I talk with you about...?”  
  
“After the run,” I said flatly. He was trying way too hard to be friendly. “Ready?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be, I guess. Lead on.”

***

_4:57 AM_

_???_

OH GOD THIS WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE-

***

_5: 23 AM_

_Ridley_

Taylor was either a machine that was very good at pretending to be human, or she had more drive than a freight train.

That was going to be the last important thought I had, because my brain was definitely not getting enough air to last the next hundred feet. Or the next two hundred. Or however far it was to Taylor’s house which was  _too fucking far away, I’m gonna die._

But she wasn’t stopping. And as much as I would’ve loved to appease the girl who could tell bugs to eat my face off, I really didn’t want to lose to her. If that meant irritating her a little bit, well… life sucks.

My lungs were all but seizing in my chest, trying to suck in enough air so I didn’t just fall over. My legs refused to move any faster, so instead of trying to force something that wasn’t going to happen, I tried to lengthen my strides. More distance for only slightly more effort. I started to gain on Taylor, who was only a few paces ahead of me.

She wasn’t aware that I was gaining on her. Her head was down, her hair blocked her from seeing or being seen, and I could’ve very well blown by her without her even knowing it. Heck, I could’ve even pushed her aside-  _No. Not doing that. That’s stupid, and I’d die for real._

But I was, in fact, still slower than her. Taylor stayed ahead, and we both staggered off the sidewalk into her front yard. She headed straight for the front steps and sat down, wiping her face with her arm. I had the same idea, but halfway there I realized I was too hot to stop moving, and so I kept pacing for a while.

My heart pounded away in my chest, every drop of sweat letting me know where it was as it rolled down my face and back. Taylor cradled her head in her hands, panting just as hard as I was. I tried and failed to ask if she was alright, my heavy breathing making it come out as generic gasping sounds, rather than any actual words. It took a while before either of us were able to get ourselves under control, let alone talk coherently.

I expected Taylor to be first on the recovery, but it was me instead. I stopped pacing about and went over to her, extending a hand. “That was awful,” I said breathily. She didn’t say anything back, just brought her head up enough to give me a flat look. Her eyes flicked across me, like she was looking for something.

“It’s supposed to get easier,” she mumbled. Her arm lifted a bit towards mine, then paused for a split second. But, she eventually did take my hand and let me pull her up. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding as she turned around and walked up the stairs without incident. Then she stopped at the door, one hand on the handle. It was so sudden, so unexpected, I froze in place.

Seconds passed.

“Come inside,” she ordered in a tone that wasn't not quite angry, but very close. I didn’t hesitate to follow her up the steps-

-and suddenly I was tipping forward as the first one gave out on me.

I didn’t know what was happening but I  _hit_ my head on the top step my arms  _slide off_  the concrete god I thought I hit my ribs too but it’s  _my head that hurts_  and Taylor lifted me up  _no wait, that’s her dad she’s behind him_  he asked me something but I was  _too dizzy right now. Everything is blurry…_

I stumbled in through the door, letting Taylor’s father guide me over to their…  _couch? Chair? Lovesea-no, this is definitely a couch._

“Grab the ice pack,” he said, laying me down on said couch. “You okay there, son?”

I stared dumbly at his face, which was quickly fading back into focus. I blinked away the last of the blurs, letting me see a face that was surprisingly similar to Taylor’s. She definitely didn’t have his hair, though, as his was thin, probably too thin for how young he looked…

He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Hey. Are. You. Alright?”

I blinked harder, and slowly sat up. “Yeah, I’m… I’m okay. Just slipped.”

Taylor’s dad gave me a small smile. “I saw. That was a bit more than just a slip. The first step, right?” When I nodded, his smile widened a bit. “I figured. We’re so used to it, Taylor probably didn’t even think to tell you.”

Right as he finished his sentence, Taylor handed him a pair of folded cloths, one of which was the ice pack that he pressed to my head. She also handed him a few band-aids, which made me blink in confusion. “I’m not bleeding, am I?”

“Just a bit,” Taylor confirmed, tapping her own head just above her brow. “Right here.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “My mom’s gonna flip out…” I muttered. Apparently it was louder than I thought, because Taylor’s dad flinched and looked over toward where I thought the kitchen was.

“Ah, sh… oot, that’s right. She wanted me to call her when you got here.” He motioned for Taylor to come close. “See if you can patch him up, kiddo, I better make that call.”

They switched places smoothly. Taylor wiped a bit of blood away and started applying the band-aids to my head, while her father’s footsteps faded as he left. I tried to smile at her, but from the look she gave me I didn’t think it looked as good as I intended. “So, uh… how do you say your last name?”

She paused with a bandage half-stuck to my head, and the hardness of the stare she gave me was anything but comfortable. “Hee-bert,” she enunciated, stressing the first syllable. “I told you before, didn’t I?”

I chuckled softly. “You did, but my mom mangled it so badly last night that it totally messed up my memory.”

Her gaze softened, just a bit. She nodded and stuck the rest of the bandage to me, then sat down on the other end of the couch. Again, neither of us said anything for a while, but this time it was much more… tense.

I looked around for a clock while I held the ice pack in place. The first hints of the sun were starting to shine above the horizon, but nowhere near enough to light up Brockton Bay just yet. It couldn’t say be any later than six.

I stopped and laid back down as that thought washed over me. It wasn’t even six yet, and here I felt like I had run a full marathon. And then I had sprawled out on a couch that wasn't even mine, with a girl on the opposite end, and her father in the other room, the latter of whom had no idea why I was really here.

There was an easy joke in there, but I didn’t want to take it. It might've been funny, maybe, right until I got eaten alive. Mr. Hebert probably wouldn’t have even batted an eye if he came back and found his superpowered daughter ‘disposing’ of some random body.  _Oh god, what if this has happened befo-_

“I’m going to ask once,” Taylor said, loud enough for me to hear, but just softly enough to ensure her dad couldn’t. She didn’t look at me as she spoke, though considering the bugs I wondered if she even needed to. “Are you with them, or are you really…” She scowled as she trailed off, which was bad because I had no idea what she meant.

“With who?” I asked, tilting my head up to look at her better.

Taylor waved her hand aimlessly. “Madison. Sophia.” Her scowl deepened. “Emma.”

“I don’t-” I started to say, but the names and faces clicked before I finished. Yes, I did know who she meant. And, better, I could guess at what she meant. “Actually, yeah, I do know who you’re talking about. And, no, not in a hundred years.”

Taylor looked at me skeptically.

"Do you think I'd lie?" I asked. When she nodded, I shut my eyes and sighed, feeling my headache increase ever so slightly.

"I'm not in the habit of forgiving," I said, staring up at the ceiling. "I don't care how pretty, or how hot people think they are..." Taylor visibly tensed up. I decided to stop complimenting them. "... my point is, I hate them. For shoving me in that locker. For shoving  _you_ in that locker. I fucking  _hate_ them."

I continued, despite knowing I was starting to ramble. "They're all looks and charm, is all they are. But they've got ugly personalities, Hess especially. Though maybe Barnes is worse for you, I don't know. What I do know is that they pretty much have leprosy, for how well I think of them."

I stopped talking yet again. It was starting to get kind of awkward, if I was being totally honest. I was pretty sure normal people didn’t just stop conversation like we were doing.

“Hives, then.” No reaction.

“Plague?” Still nothing.

“Space AIDS."

Taylor turned and gave me her best ‘WTF’ face. “You’re… really not,” she said.

“Do I have to swear on this, too?” I deadpanned. She shook her head and looked back away.

***

_6: 11 AM_  
  
Of course, my mom had gone off on Mr. Hebert over the phone. He’d come back from the call looking like he’d swallowed a dozen expired eggs, and informed me that he was going to give me a ride home the moment I felt well enough to move. I hadn’t argued then, there was no use getting mad with him when he wasn’t the one at fault. Taylor hadn’t protested either, in fact she hadn’t said anything at all. She just nodded when her dad told us what was happening and went upstairs without a word.  
  
I  _was_ getting ready to argue in the truck, however. Mr. Hebert had an old Ford pickup, one that seemed to run pretty well for how aged it was. It reminded me of when I used to ride in my grandfather’s truck when I was younger, and though it lacked the same combo smell of cologne and cigarette, I wasn’t complaining. It might have even been comfortable, if not for the circumstances. We hadn’t exchanged any words since we left the Hebert’s house. I absently wondered if it was a family trait for awkward silences.  
  
“So... Ridley,” Mr. Hebert said slowly. Okay, so it wasn’t just me. “How did you and Taylor meet, anyway?”  
  
I took a moment to remember the exact circumstances of us meeting. Accuracy was everything, after all. “Well, the first time we actually met was after she came back to school.” I paused, not sure if the next bit was what he was asking. “The first encounter we had was before that, the…” I swallowed, my throat suddenly feeling very dry. “The… the locker.”  
  
There was silence from the other half of the cab. “The… next time was…”  
  
“That’s enough, son,” he cut me off, one hand raised stiffly. I stared at him, just a bit frightened at the edge in his voice. I didn’t look back forward until he had lowered his hand just as rigidly as it had gone up, and refrained from saying anything further.  
  
Definitely something in the family.

***

_6:27 AM_  
  
Mr. Hebert knew his away around Brockton Bay, I’d give him that. Not once had he asked me for directions, and it wasn’t until we pulled onto my street that he even asked for the house number. So, either he had a good memory, or my mother had shouted it so loud it was drilled into his head. He had my sympathy if the latter was the case, I’d been there a few times myself.  
  
The truck sputtered and fell silent as he stared out the front window with a hard expression. I had one hand on the door to get out, but it didn’t feel right to leave without saying something. I tossed around a few sentences in my head, before picking the one that seemed best.  
  
“Sorry Mr. Hebert,” I said sincerely. “I-”  
  
“Don’t apologize,” he said, unbuckling himself and climbing out of the truck. “I’d like to speak to your mother.”  
  
I blinked. “O...Okay, right this way…”  
  
I clambered out of the old pickup and guided Taylor’s dad into the apartment building. Same routine as every day before. Around the back, up the stairs. Try not to smell the mildew. Ignore that it seems colder inside than out. Unlock the door, step inside. Take a deep breath of clean, warm air.  
  
…  
  
… Try not to freeze at the lack of any outbu-  
  
“Theah you ah!”  
  
There  _she_ was. My mother was like a police car sometimes; you’d hear her before you saw her. She came around the corner, still in her pajamas. “Do you know how worried I was-”  
  
“Ms. Steiner,” Mr. Hebert greeted, tipping his head.  
  
She paused mid-rant. Not a first, but definitely not something I saw every day. She was pretty quick on the recovery though, there was only a single beat before she walked up to Mr. Hebert.  
  
“Ah you Mistah Heebeht?” she asked, extending a hand. “‘Lizabeth Steinah, good tah meet’chu in pehson.”  
  
Mr. Hebert immediately stepped up and clasped her hand in both of his. He dipped his head respectfully before speaking. “Ms. Steiner, your son is a hero to both me and my daughter. He’s a superb young man, and he is welcome at our home any time.”  
  
My mom was taken aback again. “Ah, thank you, Mistah Heebeht,” she said, placing her other hand over his. “Ah’m sahrry if we caused you any trouble tahday, I was jus’ wahrried fah his safety.”  
  
“Of course,” Mr. Hebert nodded. “Taylor and I patched him up a bit, he bumped his head just as they came back from their run.” He gestured to the band-aid on my head. “I’ve been meaning to get that step fixed for a while, but that cements it.”  
  
Despite the tension in the room, I couldn’t help but snicker.  
  
My mother looked between the two of us for a moment, squinting as she tried to figure… something, out. I had no idea what. Maybe she was suspicious that I had coerced Mr. Hebert into doing something. Something ‘she would have done’, I bet.  
  
“Mom,” I said, stepping forward. She raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but didn't say anything to interrupt me. “If… uh, do you… do you mind if I spend the day at the Hebert’s?”  
  
“Do I…” my mother started, but fell quiet and started eyeing me. “...Okay, but you bettah have yah homewehk done before tahmarrow, undahstan’?”  
  
“Of course, mother,” I nodded.  
  
“And change outta those clothes, the Hebeht’s don’ need you stinkin’ up theah house.”  
  
“Yes, mother.”  
  
Mr. Hebert patted me on the shoulder. “Take your time, son, I’ll be waiting outside.” He turned to leave, but my mother spoke up before he even had his hand on the doorknob.  
  
“Mistah Hebeht,” she said firmly. “Why don’t you wait in heah. I’ll put on a pot a’ coffee.”  
  
I could see him hesitate for a moment, but when he turned around it was with a smile. “That’s very kind of you, Ms. Steiner. Thank you.”  
  
I headed for my room as my mother started up the coffee pot. I didn’t hear either her or Mr. Hebert exchange any more words, so I tried to move just a little faster to change, get some things and get out. More than I could ever remember, I wanted to be  _out_.

***

_7:03 AM_

_Taylor_

I was in the middle of drying off from a much-needed shower when I heard two sets of feet on the first floor. If it wasn't for the two familiar pressures that came into my range a few minutes ago, I would've thought we were getting robbed. It was turning out that having senses beyond anything I was supposed to worked out, in some cases. In others, not so much.  
  
Maybe it was just me, maybe it was the way my bugs sang about him, but I wasn’t totally comfortable around Ridley. I got this weird sensation, like smelling a lilac growing from a pile of compost. Or maybe hearing a perfectly tuned piano among a sea of broken violins. Or-  
  
“Taylor, you up there?” My dad, of course.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Ridley got the OK from his mother to stay over for a while. I’m sending him up to your room, alright?”  
  
“Okay, Dad.” My voice sounded flat even to me. I wasn’t sure if I was in shock or not, that nothing went wrong this morning. That really hadn’t sunk in yet.  
  
Murmurs followed Ridley’s footsteps as he came up the stairs, as he made a few false starts, and eventually made his way into my bedroom. I finished toweling my hair as he did, slowing down and trying to listen to what he was doing.  
  
I could tell from the way it scraped on the floor that he was sitting in my desk chair. My bugs picked up the vibrations through the floor, in addition to hearing with my own ears. I moved a dozen or so of my singers around, trying to cover every possible angle in my room.  
  
He wasn’t moving, at least not enough to matter. My bugs tried to let me see through their eyes, but there were too many strange angles, and countless multiples of even those. There was a pattern in the gentle cooing of their sight, but for now I didn’t know what it was.  
  
_Come on, sing for me_ , I thought, dimly aware of my hands tightening into fists on the sink. I caught the little spark of nervousness in me before it could turn my singers into a pyre, clamped down on it and refused to let it go while I waited.  _Make a move. Just one chord, just one note, just… one… No, focus Taylor._  
  
There was a thumping sound coming from my room. My bugs told me that he was moving. If I wanted to catch him in the act of whatever he was doing, it was the perfect time to do so. I threw clothes on, not bothering to check if they was actually clean or not, and rushed out of the bathroom. For once I was glad for my long, gangly limbs, because it let me make the distance to my room in less than four strides. I all but flew into my doorframe, realizing as soon as I saw nothing but blurriness that I had forgotten my glasses. I did make out Ridley’s outline, and something in his hand. Something that  _smells of plastic..._  
  
“Um…” he said awkwardly. “You alright? Can you see without your glasses?”  
  
“What’s that?” I asked, ignoring his question and pointing at the thing in his hand.  
  
He looked down for a moment. “This is my laptop. Do you… not like laptops?”  
  
We looked at one another. Well, he was probably just looking, I was squinting, and hard. Eventually, I just shook my head and walked back to the bathroom to grab my glasses. Again he did nothing when the chance was right in front of him.  
  
He  _did_ start talking the moment I came back. “I did a bit of…” He paused to purse his lips. “...research, we’ll say.” He talked without looking up from his computer, making a hand motion or two while he spoke. “I don’t know how much of this you knew already, but your…” He stopped and looked at the door, then at me with a questioning expression.  
  
I bit my lip. My fingers started fidgeting as the choir started buzzing at the back of my mind. A lot could happen in this room, with just the two of us. Having that door open meant Dad could hear whatever was going on easily, but by the same token, I’d have to come forward with my Dad. I wasn’t ready for that.  
  
Not yet.  
  
I closed the door, and Ridley continued, this time with his voice lowered. “Your power is considered a ‘Master’ type. The Protectorate and PRT give ratings based on how strong powers are, so I’d peg you as… Master 3, maybe a 4.”  
  
I remembered the categories of powers from some of my own searches, but the numbering system had seemed so vague I hadn’t paid much attention to it. Still, 3 seemed kind of low, and I said as much.  
  
Ridley shrugged. “Sorry, but a bottle of bug spray pretty much cancels you out. How far away can you control them, anyway? That’s pretty much the only thing keeping you above a 2.”  
  
“A few blocks out,” I said, sitting down on my bed. “I think my range is growing over time, though. I haven’t had my powers that long.”  
  
He made a weird noise and a middling motion with his hand. “Eh, something to remember I guess.” He started typing away on his computer. “So what are you going to do with your powers? Independant, mercenary, what?”  
  
“Hero,” I said without pause. “I want to be a hero. You should know why.”  
  
“Yeah, I get it,” he said, sighing. “Well, the Wards are easy enough to get into-”  
  
“I’m not going into the Wards.” Ridley flinched as I cut him off, but I needed to make this clear.  
  
The Wards represented everything I hated about my life at Winslow. They were one big group of popular kids, and that always meant stupid drama and even more stupid people. Not that I didn’t like the Wards as an idea, but I wasn’t about to dive headfirst into that whole mess. I had enough problems in my normal life to even think of adding all the problems that would come with the Wards.  
  
Plus, again, coming out about my powers to Dad.  
  
“...Independant hero, then,” he muttered.  
  
“What are you writing?” I asked.  
  
“Just a… profile, I guess you’d say.” He gestured to the screen. “For your cape identity, not you. That’s actually…” He hummed. “Yeah, I’ll ask now. Have you thought of a name?”  
  
I blinked. A na- of course. A cape name. Like Armsmaster, or Myrddin, or Alexandria. I hadn’t really thought about that, even though it would probably be a big part of how people saw me.  
  
“No… not really. It hasn’t been on my list of priorities.” That was true enough. I had bigger problems day-to-day. Like school. And everything in school.  
  
There were a couple more clicks and taps. “Alright… tell me if any of these sound good.” He glanced at me, and I motioned for him to go on. “Uh, okay, stop me on a good one. Scarab, Queen, Hive, Locust, Swarm, Pupa, Weaver, Honeybee…”  
  
I kept listening as he rambled off names. None were sounding particularly appealing to me, though I remembered one here and there, just for the sake of having some choices.  
  
“... Nexus, Pestus, Hornet, Chrysalis…”  
  
I started to tune out his voice, which was quickly becoming the droning noise I so often heard from my teachers. I went over the bugs I had available to me in my head, trying to figure out if maybe I had enough spiders to make a costume. The name ‘Weaver’ might fit, if that was the case. I was willing to bet there were established heroes whose names were much less fitting than that would be.  
  
“What about Weaver?” I asked, cutting Ridley off in the middle of a name that had way too many syllables.  
  
“I like it,” he said, not missing a beat. He smiled, then said in a weird whisper “ _Yesheshesheshesheesss…_ ”  
  
“Don’t do that.”  
  
“Sorry. Hey, we should give you a catchphrase.”  
  
I groaned. “Please don’t. I don’t want to be one of those heroes.”  
  
“Oh come on, we can give you a cool one.” Ridley was smiling wider now. “Cut and weave! A bit threadbare! Let’s weave a battle plan!”  
  
I groaned harder. This was like listening to one of those Clockblocker videoes, just a never ending stream of bad puns. I half-considered siccing some gnats on him, just to make it stop before it got worse, but we were both saved from our fates when there was a trio of knocks on my door.  
  
“Hey kiddo.” My dad, of course. “I’m heading to the store to pick up supper for tonight. You alright in there, is there anything you need?”  
  
“I’m all set, Dad,” I said, motioning towards Ridley. “We’re just working on school stuff.”  
  
He nodded. “Good to hear. Tell me about it when I get back, eh?”  
  
“Sure thing. See you later.”  
  
Dad gave us a small wave and left. Ridley started to speak the moment he did, but a single finger from me stopped him. I listened for Dad’s truck to start up and head off, more through my bugs than my own ears. I didn’t let Ridley speak until he was finally out of my range.  
  
“Seriously, no more puns,” I said sternly. “If you can’t be serious about this, I can’t trust you to help me.”  
  
Ridley visibly swallowed and nodded. “Alright. Whatever you say, Taylor. You’re the boss.”  
  
I started pulling in some bugs from the area around us. Maybe I could bait out a reaction from him if I showed him what I could really do. If not, then while he was here I could pull some ideas for the bugs themselves.  
  
“Okay, then. Let’s talk business.”


	10. Roil 2.4

_January 17, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
8: 12 AM

_Ridley_

Every day was the same thing. Walk into homeroom. Sit down. Wait until the morning bell went off. Move to class. Sit through class. Wait until class ended. Repeat last three steps ad infinitum until I vomited or got to the end of the day.

The only anomaly in there was lunch, and in some weird way I would’ve argued that was just another class. Less teachers involved, sure, but the same amount of boredom. Well, I could look forward to lunch later. Maybe if I was lucky, Taylor would be there.

The passing bell sounded through school, shaking me out of my usual morning griping. Like clockwork, everyone began moving. I waited until the crowd in the room had thinned a bit before heading out.

I made it to the stairs before foot traffic really ground to a halt. As I did every time it happened, I suppressed the rapidly rising thoughts to just push the whole line of people up the stairs. No matter how gratifying it might have been, in the end it would just slow everything down.

Someone obviously didn’t have the same restraint, because I felt a small shove from behind m _ohgod hot hot hot HOT-!_

I let out a noise that couldn’t possibly be called dignified as I jumped, caught my foot on the stairs, and fell down on top of someone’s legs, who fell the the person in front of them, and rapidly turned the stairway into a live domino display.

That was the second thing on my mind. The first was the apparent hot chocolate spilled all over the back of my legs. Miraculously, it had found its way there and there alone; there was hardly a drop on the stairs themselves.

I fumed silently. The urge to let out various swears faded after a few moments, along with the hot throbbing in my legs. I looked back, seeing one of three people that I really wanted no part of.

“I’m so sorry,” the little imp named Madison said. She had the decency to look guilty, but she was so small it was like looking at a puppy. A really annoying, bratty, puppy that deserved a kick in the teeth.

I wanted to go off on her, but it really wasn’t going to be worth the effort. So instead, I just turned around, didn’t pay attention to the other kids on the stairs glaring down at me, and kept on moving to my class.

***

_1:21 PM_

“Hey, you,” someone called pleasantly from behind me. I looked around for the voice’s owner, quickly finding a familiar person standing down the hall from my classroom. Emma… something. Her last name escaped me for a moment.  _Bensen, Bozo, Barnyar- Barnes. That’s it._  
  
In my head I knew I should just ignore her and continue on my way, but knowing what I did about her just pushed every single button I had, and installed a few new ones for good measure. I all but stomped over to her, scowling as harshly as I could.  
  
She was leaning against one of the brick walls, seeming unconcerned with how dirty it must have been. I would have thought that someone like her wouldn’t be caught dead in the basement, but here she was. I stood across from her, so in order to face me her back had to be against the wall. It was what my parents did to me whenever I made them angry, and I hoped it would work here as well.  
  
“What do you want, Barnes,” I asked irately, folding my arms across my chest. It occurred to me I didn’t have anything sharp on me to throw at her. Following that, it also occurred to me that that wouldn’t have been a good idea, anyway.  
  
“I don’t want anything,  _Ridley_ ,” she said sweetly, smiling the smile of the pompous the whole time. The way she said my name might have been nice if I didn’t know what kind of person she was. “I just thought you should get a little warning.”  
  
I shrugged. “Yeah, you tested positive for AIDS. Old news, I’m not interested.”  
  
There was only a twitch of her eye to indicate I’d irritated her. “You should know that hanging around Taylor is bad for you.” She gestured around us, at the passing crowds. “Ask anyone, they’ll tell you she’s bad news.”  
  
I stepped forward, pointing my finger right in Emma’s face. “Let’s get something straight, you and me. Taylor’s a better person than you could ever be, and if you talk abou-”  
  
“MR. STEINER!” A shrill voice cut through the noise of the hallways, making me jump back. I looked towards the source, and found one of the vice principals standing there, a tall, almost manly woman whose name I couldn’t remember. And who else behind her, but Madison.  
  
The VP walked towards me and Emma, clearly not happy with what she saw. “What is going on here, explain it now!”  
  
On cue, Emma teared up and clasped her hands. “Oh, Mrs. Strumeyer, thank goodness. He had me alone here, I was so scared. Nobody else even noticed I was missing…”  
  
All I could do was gape at the incredulousness of what was happening.  
  
“Thank Ms. Clements, she’s the one who came to me,” Mrs. Strumeyer said, hands on her hips. “As for you, Mr. Steiner, this behavior is unacceptable. Harassing a defenseless girl like Ms. Barnes is grounds enough for suspension, you know.”  
  
“I wasn’t harassing her!” I blurted out. “She was trash-talking my friend, and I-”  
  
“I said Taylor was dangerous!” Emma choked out. She looked at Mrs. Strumeyer. “Taylor Hebert. She’s bullied me and my friends before. But Ridley’s going along with her now!” She pointed a finger at me.  
  
The vice principal seemed to stall for a moment, looking between me and Emma with pursed lips. “Well…” she started, “speaking ill of other students isn’t strictly forbidden, but you, Mr. Steiner, should know better than to hang around with such troublemakers. Detention, my office after school.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, before I could even think of a reply.  
  
She nodded, and immediately left with the two girls in tow. Neither spared me a glance as they followed the VP away. That was good for me, because I might have done something stupid if they had.  
  
_She wasn’t lying,_  I thought. _Not quite the kind of dangerous I thought she meant, though._

***

_4:39 PM_

_Taylor_

Two times ‘x’ to the power of seven, multiplied by eight times five point four, all over…  
_Eat drink skitter weave move skitter back forth over under through around skitter eat…_

The square root of twenty ‘x’ plus three is equal to three ‘y’ plus seven…  
_Back forth weave eat drink straighten tighten around around around skitter tighten…_

I paused and sat back in my chair, one stream of thought vanishing. The other kept orchestrating my spiders down in the basement, as fluidly as if I was there myself, nudging every single one into place.

Powers usually came with secondary effects, I had discovered. Usually it was something related to the power itself. I knew there was a specific name for those effects, but couldn’t quite remember it. What I did remember was that, to break it down really simply, if you had the power to light yourself on fire, generally you became immune to fire.

Over the course of the day, I had noticed something different about how I was thinking. While I had my full attention on my class at the time, I also noticed that I had the same amount of focus on a cluster of bugs three classes over, listening in to Madison continuing to gossip about me. At one point during lunch, I had been sending some flies to carry their eggs to a small plastic bag in my backpack, and I was able to keep track of at least two conversations on opposite ends of the cafeteria. Both were with my bugs, which meant I had been giving attention to no less than three different songs that wasn’t diminished in any way.

It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that I had some sort of multitasking facet to my power. Spending all of yesterday brainstorming ideas with Ridley, like the fly eggs in the bag, had really gotten me going with what I might be able to do with my power. He had actually only proposed a bee farm, but after some thinking we couldn’t see why it only had to be bees.

I didn’t like some of his other ideas, though. No matter how much I was tempted, I wasn’t going to put maggots in the Trio’s lockers, or anywhere else.

I shook my head and refocused on some spiders that were hard at work. I had a couple species weaving simple strings of their silk. My power told me which ones were healthy enough to weave large amounts of web, but not how good that web would actually be. It was kind of a weird disconnect, but not one I couldn’t work around.

I wouldn’t be able to get silk in large quantities for some time, anyway. My power did not, unfortunately, allow me to completely bypass my bugs’ natural processes. I could kind of force them one way or the other, like making them active when they should be hibernating, but breeding and growing more spiders was going to take time. The only thing I could do to speed that along was ensure every one of them was fed.

Speaking of which, they were just about done. I got up from my desk and headed down to the cellar, stopping in the kitchen to grab a knife. I made sure it was a serrated one, so I could get a good idea of just how tough this silk would be.

This was one of the few ideas I had before the actual brainstorming. I remembered hearing that silk was stronger than steel, but that was probably found out using the best silk there was. With so many kinds of spiders, I wanted to know for myself which gave the best silk, so every species I could find enough of was made to weave a bundle about as thick as a pencil. After all was said and done, I had about six sets of weaving spiders ready for now. If I kept an eye on the rest, I could have as many as twice that in a few months.

I was really hoping it wasn’t the black widows. Even with complete control over them, just knowing that I might have a nest of one of the most dangerous spider species in America was a little scary. A dozen or so? That was fine. A thousand dozen? No thank you.

I made my way down into the basement, taking each step very slowly. A few dozen melodies were bouncing around, giving me an extremely rough, but apparently still usable, sonar. That was another one of those weird disconnects in my power, this time where I actually had all the information, but my brain wasn’t sure how to process it. It was only the third or fourth time I had tried it, so I was still learning what notes meant what.

Still, I managed to make my way into the corner I was keeping my spiders, next to the old coal chute. Each species was clustered around its respective bundle of silk, almost invisible in the dim light. I had a few flies that were waiting to be food for the spiders move to pick up the first bundle, and drop it in my hand.

It was actually pretty surprising, how easily the tiny bugs were able to pick up and move the silk. I hadn’t expected it to be so lightweight. They dropped it in my hand with no problems, and buzzed back to their corner.

I took a moment to look at the silk my spiders had woven. It was actually amazing what they had done with such a simple order. There were countless little strands of material, all woven around one another. It was almost exactly like string, with each strand making a small bundle, which then wrapped around others to make a larger bundle, then wrapped around  _others_ , and so on. It was soft, too, and just a little squishy.

The bundle was wrapped around the kitchen knife before I could consider actually not testing it. I let out a little sigh, feeling a sense of loss even over something so small. It was a piece of art, just as much as any song my choir could come up with, but I had to destroy it.

The knife cut a few strands on the first pass. It wasn’t biting in too deeply, but there were definitely some threads floating away from the rest. A bit more pressure on the next cut, and most of the bundle came undone. It might do in a pinch, but this was definitely not my first pick.

I let the failed silk fall the ground, and ordered the next brought to me.

***

Of course, it turned out it was the black widows.  
  
Theirs had been the best, overall. The knife had caught the first few pulls, despite how smooth the silk felt in my hand. The bundle was still cut, eventually, but it took more sawing and less cutting. If I ended up in a situation where that was a problem, I was going to have bigger problems than my costume being in one piece.  
  
I sighed loudly and set the widows to eating the rest of the flies in the basement. I tried to think of it as a reward, but it was kind of hard when the flies echoed back  _happiness_ of all things. If they had been intelligent, it would have certainly been creepy, but even knowing they were just repeating my emotions back to me didn't make it seem quite right.  
  
That taken care of, I went back to my room, making sure to clean and replace the knife I had used. With any luck, Dad would never be the wiser.

***

_January 22, 2011  
11: 42 PM_

_Ridley_

“Awright, team,” my mother said loudly, all smiles, “weah heah.”

‘Here’ was the Brockton Mall, towards the back of the parking lot. It was a weekly ritual for my mom and sister to go at least every other week, and for once I had decided to tag along. There wasn't any particular reason why, maybe it was to get out for once. Either way, my sister didn't care, she just huffed from her seat in back of the car and proceeded to drag herself out. I was about to do the same when my mother laid a hand on my arm, looking at me oddly.

“I really appreciate you comin’,” she said, “it’s bin fo’evah since I had a nice aftahnoon with you and yah sistah.”

Of course, I wasn’t present for my mom’s satisfaction. But the appearance had to be made, so I smiled and squeezed her hand. “What can I say? I get lonely sometimes.”

She gave a genuine smile back. She patted my shoulder once before shooing me out of the car. My sister gave a reasonably nasty stink-eye as I clambered out, about a four out of ten. I resisted the urge to flip her the bird, if only because my mother was standing right there.

We split up the moment we were inside the mall. JC Penny wasn’t my type of store, so I left my family to take a stroll. Being packed into the crappy old Honda my mother owned for the ride had pretty much used up all my available ‘family time’.

I had about twenty dollars available to spend, and started planning my route accordingly. No sense in hitting the music store when I could scarcely afford a CD, and for the same reason I mentally crossed off several other stops. That pretty much eliminated half the places in the mall that I had any interest in. Then again, there was always the ice cream stand. It was just a little one, without the cookie dough flavor I really enjoyed, but it more than made up for that with a fantastic vanilla recipe. And the  _Secondhand Stan_  shop was on the way, perfect for some mindless browsing.

Pushing through the crowds of the mall would have been difficult if it was my whole family together, but with just me it was easy to slide between the crowds of people that really needed to learn to walk faster. I made it to the thrift store in no time, and after flipping a coin decided to stop in before I got my ice cream, rather than after.

_Secondhand Stan_  wasn’t very similar to the other shops in the mall. Where others had bright lights, colorful advertising, and occasionally bustling employees, the thrift store was extremely dark and sedate. There was only one elderly man to work the register, entertaining himself with some card game, and I was almost willing to bet the lightbulbs in the ceiling were secondhand themselves. The clean, freshened air present in the rest of the mall was replaced with an old, almost stale scent, one that kind of reminded me of my great-grandfather’s house.

I started ambling through the aisles. The merchandise closest to the entry was placed on tables, so I started there. I’d make my way to the back of the store, scanning everything as I went, so I could walk straight out afterwards.

The first few tables were stacked high with shirts of all kinds. I had plenty. The pants racks… had nothing good. I wondered why people would even bother buying all these khakis. The only place I ever saw them was on private school kids.

I stopped at the hats and scarves. Sitting on just the edge of the table was a grey hex-print scarf, looking reasonably intact. Only a few dollars, too… I’d come back to it.

There wasn’t much faith to be had in the coat rack. Just from a glance, the chance of finding something that even fit me was too low. Not to mention, everything looked like the donators hadn’t even bothered to wash it.

I stopped for a moment to appreciate the fact I had gone from browsing, to full-on clothes shopping. Like a woman. Worse, like my mother. Even worse, something I always got on her case for.

The first few coats on rack screeched as I moved them, the metal hangers that supported heavy leather pieces screeching into the otherwise quiet store air. Almost everything was old and cracked, hardly worth taking a closer look at.

A mumbled curse snuck its way past my lips as I shifted one hangar the wrong way, making a whole bunch of coats fall off the rack and onto the floor. With a sigh, I started picking up the various coats.

Footsteps sounded behind me, coming my way. I looked back to see the old man, previously behind the counter, looking at me with a heavy frown. He was half-limping his way over to the coat rack, fists tightly clenched.

“What’s the commotion over here?” he grumbled, in a voice that spoke of way too many cigarettes.

I picked up the last coat and held it up, trying to finagle it properly back onto its hangar. “Some coats fell, sir, I was just trying to put them back.”

I coughed as he stepped closer, feeling an aura of tobacco smack me full in the face. The old man grabbed the coat out of my hands and held it up. Despite myself, I almost laughed; the trench coat was almost as tall as he was. The humor didn’t last past the point where he lowered it to glare at me.

“Sleeve’s got a hole in it. Ten bucks.”

I blinked. “I’m so… I don’t… what?”

He held out his hand. “Ten bucks for the coat. You break it, you buy it. Didn’t your parents teach you that?”

“No.” The word slipped out of my mouth before I could think. I didn’t spare any time to consider if it was actually true or not, instead just fishing out the money and handing it over. There wasn’t anything else from the geezer, just a grumble and a much slower walk back to the counter.

I didn’t even consider going back for the scarf. At that point, I just balled up the coat and left, glowering as I tried to find the rest of my dear family.

***

_January 23, 2011  
10: 59 PM_

_Taylor_

Ridley sat in my desk chair with a notepad in his lap, gesturing as he spoke. “I’m just saying, if we treat this seriously, we might come up with something good.”

I laid on my bed, mulling over his words. We were busy trying to come up with a sort of codespeak to use. He was of the opinion that it would be helpful, while I just thought it would be a lot of needless complication. He was proving hard to convince, in that regard.

“It’s just more we’d have to worry about,” I argued, while simultaneously trying to read the words on my papers using a few different kinds of flies. “How are we going to practice, anway? At school? Aren’t we big enough targets without sounding like-”

“-vomiting dictionaries?” He supplied, frowning. “Yeah, okay. Good point.”

“Something like that.” I switched out the bugs on the pages for a few others.

Ridley started writing something down while I focused on reading my papers. Things got quiet for a few minutes while we focused on our own tasks.

“Question.” I waved my hand for him to continue.

“When you first head out…” he began, “what do you want me to do? Ops, scouting…”

I blinked, then looked at him. “Are you crazy?”

“N… no? You’re going to need someone in your corner, going alone is practically suicide in this city.” Ridley set his notes down and folded his arms. “Unless you want to bring in your Dad-”

“NO!” I yelled. Ridley jerked up in his seat, but settled back down quickly.

“... okay.”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” I murmured, “just… no. Just no. I’m not involving my Dad with this.”

“Alright. No parental involvement.”

“You understand, right? You wouldn’t… want your mother to know about me? Or you, if you had powers?”

“I wouldn’t tell her what my favorite foods are, if I could help it. But yeah, I get where you’re coming from.”

I sighed and sank further back into my bed, rubbing my temples. I doubted he did, really, but I didn’t feel like pressing the issue further. The other thing, though…

“And you’re not coming with me,” I told him. “You don’t have powers, or gear.” I thought for a moment. “You don’t even have a gun.”

“What did I just say? You need somebody in your corner. Besides, I can steal stuff.”

“That’s not very heroic.”

“From the gang members, I mean. Call it the spoils of war.” He tapped his papers. “Indie’s do it all the time. Grab firearms, drugs, whatever. Especially money, if it’s there. We could make a killi-” Ridley froze mid-sentence, his eyes wide. “...living. A decent living.”

“You’re still talking like I’m going to let you come along,” I pointed out. “It’s way too dangerous for you.”

“Oh yeah, ‘cause it’s so much safer for you. A wall of bugs is totally going to block a bullet. Can you stop me?”

“Very easily,” I reminded him.

“...oh. Right.” He fell silent for a few moments. “Taylor.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“If you get hurt…” He paused. “I’ll tell your Dad.”  
_  
No._

I started to sit up. If he thought he could threaten me with my Dad, I was going to  _turn his body into a concert hall._

“W-w-wait!” He stuttered, holding his hands up. “But! But if you let me come along, I’ll cover up anything that does happen! I’ll say it was me! Your Dad will never know!”

“Are you…  _blackmailing_  me?” I asked.

He offered a smile. “Call it grey-mail?”

“I can give you a hundred bee stings before you say anything,” I said, buzzing a few bugs onto his papers.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a hero?”

I almost stung him right then and there, just prove I could. Just to wipe that fake smile off his face. But an idea sprang to mind. There was something else I could do to knock out whatever other stupid ideas he had in his head, and keep any more from ever coming.

“Fine… but I have a few conditions.”

His smile shrank down, suddenly much less forced. “Of course. Shoot.”

I held up a finger. “You need a disguise. Or a costume, whatever. I made one for myself, you’ll need one too.”

His eyes flicked towards the ceiling for a moment. “Done.”

“Second,” I put up another finger. “We’re not fighting other capes. If I give you the signal to run, just do it.”

Ridley hesitated, his eyes now darting side to side. “...okay. I’ll trust you not to abuse that.”

A smile of my own crept onto my face. “Third, we’re doubling our training routine.”

“Kill me.”


	11. Roil 2.5

_January 27, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
5: 17 AM 

_Ridley_

“Pick up the… the pace!” Taylor gasped from a solid twenty feet ahead of me.

“Tuh… haum tryi-!” I wheezed back.

Our daily training of a two mile run had been, as promised, doubled by the oh-so-wise parahuman of the group, along with a doubling of everything else we did. Push-ups one day, situps another, whatever those weird stretches were, and god forbid there be any rhyme or reason to it. ‘Kill me’ had become my daily mantra way faster than was appropriate for anyone, except maybe WWI soldiers.

She had to have a Brute rating in there somewhere. No normal person could push themselves as hard as we were.

I noticed I was starting to lag behind her. There quickly came a buzzing in my ears, as a few bees that should not have been active this early in year reminded me to keep up. She hadn’t stung me with them, not once since we started this whole thing, but I really didn’t want to find out if that was something she was saving for when I started actually slacking off.

“One more mile!” she called back, apparently assuming I cared for any words other than ‘stop’.

I just put one foot in front of the other, and kept moving forward. And every time, the foot in question reminded me how much it didn't want to keep going.

***

_January 30, 2011  
7: 07 PM_

_Taylor_

I tried not to laugh as Ridley stumbled, cursing repeatedly, over the first step up to the house yet again. It had been weeks now, and still he was either tripping over or falling off it. “Are you ever going to learn?” I asked.  
  
“Stop your snickering,” he snapped, although I had learned he was usually more upset with himself than me. “I have lousy coordination, okay?”  
  
I shrugged and held the door open for him. He took a moment to theatrically stagger inside before making a beeline for the couch and collapsing onto it, like he did every morning we ran. I shook my head and followed him in.  
  
Dad’s voice sounded out from the kitchen, along with the faint sound of... sizzling? “Morning, troopers, everything all right out in the Bay?”  
  
“Everything but Ridley’s stamina,” I said, heading upstairs. “I’m taking a shower.”  
  
“Don’t take too long,” he replied, “breakfast will be done soon.”  
  
I paused, one foot on the steps. “Breakfast?” Dad hadn't made breakfast in… I couldn't remember how long. A year, at least.  
  
“Yes, Taylor, breakfast,” Ridley chimed in from the couch. “You know, that thing people eat in the morning. It comes before brunch, but after di-”  
  
“Alright, alright, that’s enough,” Dad cut him off, though I could hear his smile. “Keep talking and you forfeit yours.”  
  
Ridley promptly shut up. I smiled to myself and continued upstairs.

***

_1:17 PM_  
  
Lunch was enjoyable, if a bit quiet. Ridley and I had made sandwiches, nothing too fancy. Mine was a BLT with extra tomatoes, while he had gone through the entire fridge and slapped together just about every sort of cold cut he could find. We were eating up in my room, of course, but for once we couldn’t think of much cape-related business to talk about. The last few hours had been spent doing homework, of all things. It was… normal, for a change.  
  
“So what are you gonna do about HK fights?”  
  
I started choking on my lunch. Ridley laughed, more than was strictly necessary. “Not that, I hope,” he quipped as I pounded my chest a few times.  
  
Once I could breathe right again, I shot him a look. “Are you serious?”  
  
Bringing Hunter-Killers up like he just had was like talking about the Holocaust as if it was a daily occurrence. They were mentioned in the same breath as natural disasters, and could be many times more devastating. Well, maybe it was better to say they were more like heart attacks. Certain places were bigger targets than others. For example, HK’s almost never struck anywhere in the countryside. It was usually some big, populated area, with lots of potential casualties and collateral damage.  
  
They were the only circumstances where the capes around the world would put aside their differences to fight together. You could see the diverse cast of the Guild from Canada, the elite and professional King’s Men from England, and the tinkertech-heavy Sentient from South America, all fighting together. That last group was notorious for only appearing to fight HK’s, and there had yet to be any footage of the elusive leader, Ness.  
  
I remembered from my Modern Issues class that HK’s had once been called ‘Endbringers’, a term that had faded out just as my generation was born. It was then that it was figured out that they weren’t really ending the world… they were just hunting those of us that were living on it.  
  
Nothing about my power could really contribute to fighting HK's. Behemoth was the largest and most brutish of the bunch, and was known to simply incinerate minions of Masters. Leviathan, the mile-long serpent, could drown them without issue, and Revelation… I really didn’t want to think about what would happen if I ever had to fight that thing.  
  
I eventually shook my head, feeling slightly depressed. “I… won’t be going to any. I can’t help.”  
  
“You could do search and rescue for Behemoth fights, couldn’t you?” he asked, neither looking nor sounding very surprised at my decision.  
  
“Maybe,” I sighed. “Let’s… talk about something else.”  
  
“Yeah, alright.”

***

_February 2, 2011  
7: 20 PM_

_Ridley_

“Hey.”

I paused in the middle of heating some leftovers to look back at my mother. “Yes, Mom?”

She shifted a bit in place and crossed her arms. “How ah… how ah ya doin’?”

“As fine as the next guy, I guess,” I said. “Any reason you’re asking?”

“I know I ain’ been too easy on yah,” she started, leaning back against the counter and folding her arms. “But I saw yah bounce back so quick, I thought yah were doin’ okay.”

My throat dried up a little bit, but I did my best to ignore it. “I’m fine, mother.”

“Yah spendin’ a lotta time ovah at Taylah’s house,” she started. I noticed she wasn’t quite looking me in the eye. “Is theah… ah you doin’ okay? I ain’t used tah seein’ you out an’ about.”

“Fitness training,” I said easily, partly because that was the truth. From a certain point of view.

My mother nodded slowly, still looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite place. “Well… Ah’m glad yah finally decided to do somethin’ with yah time. But that’s not what I meant.”

I shrugged.

“You ain’t been out this much since you an’ Magnolia-”

“I said I’m fine, mother.” I slammed the door on the microwave, harder than I really should have. All of a sudden I wasn’t feeling hungry anymore. “Good night.”

“Hey! Don’t you walk away from-”

All but running to my room and slamming the door was done in near record time. I didn’t have any time to fume though. My mother’s heavy footfalls sounded through the building as she stomped over to the door to force the conversation further, but I already knew what to do.

It was a nice little trick, I thought. All I had to do was take off my sneaker and wedge it into the space between the bottom of the door, and the actual floor, which I proceeded to do with practiced ease. I didn’t like to use this trick often, but if ever there was a time that qualified, now was it.

I still jumped a little as the handle on the door turned and door itself flew open about three inches before stopping dead in its tracks. My mother tried to force it open a few more times, but she had neither the muscle nor the weight to move it.

“Ridley!” she yelled, “open the doah this instin’!”

I didn’t reply to her. Instead I just sat down on my bed, content to do nothing but fume. There was enough space for her to see this, and it just made her angrier. Tuning out her sporadic demands for me to let her in was never easy, but I thought it was probably the best time for some practice.

“Ridley I sweah, if you don-”

“NOBODY,” I yelled over her, “gets to say her name!”

That was the only response she would get from me. Of course, she just sputtered angrily and made more demands, still failing against the shoe stuck under the door. I spared one more thought to building a shrine for that sneaker sometime in the future before I turned my attention away entirely.

I glanced at my closet. It was only open a crack, but that was enough to see the outfit I had hanging up. It wasn’t anything special, just the trench coat I had ‘bought’ from the thrift store, a pair of old work boots I found lying around, and a black, wooly scarf. My ‘costume’, for lack of a better term.

Seeing it prompted a quick mental check of the knives I would filch from the kitchen before setting out Friday. Lethal injuries weren’t very heroic, sure, but neither was letting some gangbanger get the drop on me without any powers or real weapons of my own. Taylor didn’t know I would have them, but if all went well she wouldn’t ever find out.

“RIDLEY!”

***

_February 4, 2011  
11:06 PM_

_Taylor_

It was a coin flip whether I had judged the notes from the bugs in the kitchen right. But if I was right, it had just hit eleven.

Showtime.

Dad was sound asleep. I triple, quadruple checked with my bugs, made sure they sung extra quietly back to me before I even climbed out of my bed. I had been somewhat worried about falling asleep myself, but I had so much nervous energy that turned out to be not a problem.

I snuck downstairs as quietly as I could, trying not to step on any of the louder floorboards. Either my dad was a heavier sleeper than I thought, or I was having luck here too, because he didn’t so much as roll over as I watched him. Not even a snort as I yanked open the cellar door and crept down those stairs, too.

My bugs didn’t have to whisper me through the darkness, I knew the way by heart. There was some difficulty pulling on the silken suit I had stashed under the old coal chute, but as I hadn’t attached any plates or anything it wasn’t unbearably rigid. My sneakers went back on right after I made sure everything fit properly.

There was one last thing to consider, that being whether the partially-made mask was worth bringing. It was made of silk, like my suit, but as it was it looked more like something a skier would wear than anything a cape would. In the end I decided the domino mask I had put down here too would suffice, at least for tonight.

I stood still for a moment, getting a feel for my costume. It was… a little heavier than I thought it would be, but no more than some of my normal clothes. I doubted a few extra ounces would matter, and in the cold winter air I would take as much insulation as I could.

By the time I managed to get outside, Ridley had just entered the neighborhood. The few minutes I had before he got to my house were spent making sure everything about the silk suit was in place, and doing some light warmup exercises. It helped to burn off some of my nervousness, and stave off the chill of the late night air.

If his personal song hadn’t given him away, I wouldn’t have recognized the person who walked down the road to meet me. His face was covered from the nose down with a scarf, and the rest of him, with the exception of his feet, was likewise hidden by an old, and frankly kind of smelly, trench coat.

“Hail, Skitter,” he called out. “Fare thee well?”

I waited until he was closer before responding, so I could speak without waking up the neighborhood. “Ridley.” He slapped up a mock salute. “Just for that, you get a stupid codename.”

“Oh come on TaySKITTER,” he protested, crossing his arms. “It was just a joke. We’ve gotta sound heroic, right?”

“Isn’t talking in Old English that Shakespearean cape’s thing?” I asked, faintly recalling somebody with powers that let him make a whole troupe of actors. “I don’t want to start this whole thing by ripping off somebody else.”

“Good point, but he’s a Brit,” Ridley said, waving a hand. “Nobody cares about teaheads.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure if he was actually being racist, or just making a joke. “Come on…” I paused, then said the first word that came to mind. “...Birdie. We’ve got work to do.”

He froze as I started walking away. “You did  _not_ just call me ‘ _Birdie_ ’.”

“Would you rather stay here?” I called back, already two houses away from him. He just stood in place, staring at me, before jogging to catch up.

***

Between the two of us, I was the one who knew the city best. By his own admission Ridley didn’t care to know the street names and city layout, so it fell to me to guide us. He kept in step with me, but I was still leading us around the city.  
  
At least an hour had passed since we left home, and we were only just starting to leave the residential areas. I was pretty sure we were going north, but that wasn’t the plan or anything like that. In fact, we didn’t really have a plan. The only solid idea I had was trying to catch some thugs during a robbery, or a drug deal. Something small, easily manageable.  
  
The area around us was suspiciously quiet. My bugs picked up on people moving around, but most of them were the sort of sleepy, sluggish movements that people in their own homes made before going to bed. Nothing really screamed ‘crime in progress’.  
  
“Any bites?”  
  
I didn’t bother to answer out loud, just shaking my head. An overdramatic huff sounded from beside me. “Never thought hero work could be boring.”  
  
“We’ve barely been out an hour,” I pointed out, setting a course around the center of town. “Didn’t you say most nighttime crimes don’t happen until one or so?”  
  
“If you say so,” he mumbled. “Well, quiet is better than loud, I guess.”  
  
“So stop talking, Birdie.”  
  
“You’re not seriously sticking me with that, are you?”  
  
I smiled to myself.

***

_Ridley_

The smell of seawater started creeping into my nose after who-knew-how-long spent walking. I sent a glare Taylor’s way, silently judging her for inadvertently dragging us all the way to the docks. This was probably as far away from home as we could get without actually leaving Brockton Bay, and she just had to make a beeline for it.

_Beeline_. I grinned.  _Gotta remember that for later. Or now._  I glanced back over to her. She was looking away from me, probably towards something weird through her bug senses. “Skitter.”

“What is it?” she asked flatly.

“Of all the places in the Bay,” I started, grateful for the scarf that was hiding my mouth. “Why did you make a-”

_POW_

We froze.

The crack echoed through the air and faded as quickly as it had come.

Skitter turned her head in the direction of the noise. “Is that-”

_POWPOWPOW_

_POWPOW_

I blinked before muttering, “Gunfire doesn’t really sound that wimpy, does it?”

“Come on,” Skitter said, grabbing my arm and half-pulling me along.

It was good for us that it was so late at night, otherwise we might have had to worry about cars. As it was, we just ran through streets and alleys, seemingly haphazardly, with Taylor guiding us. For once, I was grateful for all the running she had us do, because running for five minutes straight hardly left me winded.

We made our way into the docks, quickly ending up amongst warehouses in varying states of use and disrepair. Gunshots rang out at random intervals, getting louder and louder as we got closer. I could start to make out at least three voices yelling to one another, but I couldn’t see much, what with only a few lights scattered around to brush away the night. But Skitter had human sonar, and that was way better than my eyes could ever be.

Eventually we were close enough that even I could pinpoint where the gunfire was coming from. Taylor and I pressed up against an old, rusted-out warehouse that was right next to an open courtyard. I peeked out from our cover to see a couple of extremely white guys taking cover of their own behind some junk pickups. Across the way from them were some darker-skinned people, I was guessing asians from the way the light barely lit up their greens and purples.

A shootout between two gangs. Jackpot.

“What’s the plan?” I asked, almost giddy.

Taylor shook her head. “You’re not doing anything. Stay here, watch for more.”

I made an annoyed noise. She was right, of course. I couldn’t do anything against firearms. “Fine. Signal is ‘plague’.”

She shot me a weird look, like she wasn’t sure where I got the word from. I wasn’t sure myself, so I just shrugged. My response was one shake of the head before Skitter darted over to the next warehouse, getting a better view of the action.

Strictly speaking I was supposed to be on lookout duty, but I wanted to catch her first night in action with my own eyes. I kept largely riveted on the firefight, but spared a glance in her general direction every so often, waiting to see what she would do.

***

_Taylor_

It was easy enough to sneak around the gangs. Not only were they completely riveted on one another, I was pretty sure from the garbled pictures my bugs gave me that the light in the courtyard was actually making anything that wasn’t inside it harder to see. My ‘partner’ would probably be safe enough, if he just stayed where he was.

I was making my way towards the ABB’s side of the fight, slinking from warehouse to abandoned warehouse in the dark. Nobody had noticed me so far, which was good. One of their members had taken a hit, and was currently being treated by two others. A quick headcount confirmed that was just under a third their manpower. There were… seven, in total. The Empire had them outnumbered with ten.

Finding places right next to the two gangs was easy enough, for my bugs. For once, I started letting go of the tight grip I always kept on my emotions. I let my bugs hear how nervous I was, how excited I was. Then they sung back how ecstatic they were. I said wary, they said paranoid. They started buzzing of their own accord, one giant orchestra growing more and more agitated the longer I had them wait.

The skinheads stopped shooting soon after the ABB did. They started barking orders to one another, moving out from behind their vehicles and creeping towards the asians. By extension, they were also moving towards me, which was… not quite good, but even if I did nothing now I could take one or two out if they got too close. Of course, I would make a dash for some other cover as soon as they did.

As soon as the E88 gangers were halfway across the courtyard, I struck.

Thousands of bugs started swarming out of every building, crack, and crevice around us. I had them start their symphony the moment they left hiding, filling the air with a constant, droning noise that sounded like it had come straight out of the Bible.

I hit the ABB first, to ensure they would stay down. Cries of fear and panic started coming from their position as bees, hornets, flies, spiders, and other insects of all kinds started crawling all over their skin. I made sure that nobody was actually stung, but I wasn’t afraid to let loose with bites from practically every bug present.

The sounds of gang members yelling out in pain was…  _good_. It was a song unto itself, almost as good as listening to my choir, beautiful in its own horrible way. I felt bad for thinking that, but those guys deserved it.

A laugh bubbled up from my gut, one I tried and failed to hold in. It wasn’t that loud, but it still slipped out from my lips and added to the composition hanging in the air. It sounded wonderful.

Gunshots started ringing again, cutting through my melody and right into my ears-

“Back there! Behind the chinks!”

_Uh oh._

***

_Ridley_

  
Taylor screamed. It wasn’t a ‘don’t tickle me’ scream, or an ‘ew how gross’ scream. More of an ‘oh god the pain’ scream. Suddenly the whole night seemed a lot less fun.  
  
From one of the many pockets on this coat, some of them clearly added in after it was made, I pulled a steak knife. Obviously, it was suicide to just run up and start stabbing, but I figured I could at least hit someone if I threw it.  
  
The eight or so white trash idiots were just about in line with the alleyway I was using to look out on the fight. Odds were, if I moved right, they wouldn’t even see me before it was too late. I started creeping down the alley, pressing up against the warehouse as best I could. Nobody noticed me as I came up to the corner, as they were too busy trying to scrape the literal swarm off of themselves.  
  
Except for one, my new target. He was apparently a bit more thick-skinned than his buddies, as he was starting to move toward I assumed Taylor was. I drew my arm back, judging exactly how to throw the knife at him.  _His funeral_.  
  
The blade started flipping end over end the moment it left my hand, way faster than I thought it would. It also missed the thug by a country mile, clattering to the ground far, far past him.  
  
“Hey!” one of the gangers still in the middle of the courtyard yelled out. He glanced at the knife for a split second, then wheeled around and pointed straight at me. “Get that shit!”  
  
I started running the moment the rest of their eyes turned to me. I didn’t hear any more rounds go off, which was good, but a quick look told me that I now had at least three Neo-Nazi morons breathing down my neck.  
  
I didn’t think, I just  _ran_.

***

_Taylor_

  
Things were going too bad, too quickly. I didn’t know whether to thank or curse Ridley later, if he was even alive by the time this was over. I TOLD him he shouldn’t have come. The ringing in my ears from the guns firing was just starting to fade, letting me focus back on…  
  
I couldn’t have been out that long. My bugs told me that there was nobody left in the courtyard. There was a bloody trail where the Asian Bad Boys had taken shelter in a nearby office building, and one of the pickups the Empire had brought was missing.  
  
Fear started to rise. Fear turned into panic turned into hysteria turned into mania no _nonononononoBREATHE TAYLOR BREATHE CALM DOWN DOWN DOWN-_  
  
Stop the song. Stop the song. Stop the song. Calm down- I took a deep breath-  _Hold on. Let it out. Don’t listen to them don’t let them sing. Another…_  
  
I brushed the tears out of my eyes and stood up on shaky legs. Gang members were still yelling through the air, but I had lost track of who was who. My swarm had all but scattered to the winds. I wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and just not wake up for an entire day. But my… my friend needed my help. And if I didn’t help them, then I’d never be able to call myself a hero. Ever.  
  
I started listening to my bugs again. I didn’t let them sing, just whisper.  
  
Just whispers.

***

_Ridley_

Already I had made a full loop around the central courtyard, and the nazi’s behind me weren’t showing any sign of stopping. Somewhere along the line they had managed to shake off the swarm of bugs, but how they did that I had no idea. Ignoring that, while outpacing them was easy enough, they weren’t slowing down. Maybe normally they would have been winded, but in a fight they just didn't seem to care.  
  
I was coming up on making a second loop around the courtyard. There was no way they were going to keep chasing me in circles  _Tom and Jerry_  style, so I had to switch up the situation quickly.  
  
An abandoned office came up on my left, and it was nothing less than divine intervention that the door looked to be long broken in. I tripped over the doorframe and stumbled inside, doing my best to keep the noise I made as low as possible. Assuming I wasn’t using all of my luck for the next year, I was fairly confident that I could wait until they passed me by, then sneak back out and group back up with Skitter.  
  
_She was right, though_ , I thought to myself as I dropped to my hands and knees to start crawling around the many desks still left in the building.  _This probably wasn’t the best way to help her._  
  
A bit more nervousness wormed its way into me as I realized that there wasn’t a really good hiding spot anywhere. Instead of wandering around, waiting for skinheads to find me, I chose a random desk and crawled under it, drawing myself into as small a ball as possible. It wasn't a good fit by any stretch, but a little discomfort was worth staying alive.  
  
Footsteps and angry grumblings came from the broken doorway on the opposite side of the room. I couldn’t really make out what was being said, but I did hear the cracking of wood and some heavy footfalls as some of them came inside.  
  
“Little shit’s probably hiding in here,” one said. “Don’t waste your time. If you find ‘em just shoot ‘em.” At least two separate voices gave affirmatives. I swallowed heavily and tried to squeeze myself tighter into my hiding space.  
  
They started taking steps towards me. The kind-of-cool night air was no longer comforting, now very hot, spiking up in temperature with my heartbeat. I tried to hold my breath, but the urge to hyperventilate fought me until I was doing something in between, taking large gulps of air but not being able to keep them in for any longer than a few seconds.  
  
Some chairs on roller wheels were being pushed around. Every now and then one of the nazi’s would curse to himself, something about bugs and somebody’s mother. I didn’t bother to try and listen for it, all that mattered was that I clamped down on my breathing, to not make so much noise.  
  
The  _clomp, clomp, clomp_ of the E88's boots was slow. Two of them were moving up and down the aisles, like a search pattern. One would start, the other would stop, then the first would go again. But sometimes they both moved, or they both stopped. There was no pattern. All I could think was that they were getting closer.  _Closer._  
  
I jumped as one of them stumbled and knocked a chair against a desk in the next row over with a loud  _clang_. "Fuckin' shitty dockworkers," he swore, kicking the chair against the far wall.  
  
My eyes had been clamped shut the entire time. I didn't want to even entertain the idea of looking around for ways out. I knew that if I so much as stuck my head out from my little hiding spot, they would see me, and it would all be over. But the heavy footfalls kept coming closer, so much  _closer_. They were practically on top of me.  
  
I took a glance out of my hiding spot, and immediately regretted it.  
  
There was an Empire Eighty-Eight member standing right next to me. If there had been any good light whatsoever, I would have been able to count the threads on his pants. He was muttering to himself as he stood, looking around. Saying it was force of will that kept me silent as he proceeded to kneel down would be a lie.  
  
An unnatural calm came over me as I stared at the person, at his legs, then at the gun in his hand. I was beyond terrified. There were no words to describe what I was feeling.  
  
The E88 gangbanger looked under the desk across from me for only a few seconds. Only a few seconds that took an eternity. It was like something out of a nightmare; any moment I expected him to suddenly whip around and stab me, or shoot me, or just do  _something_ -  
  
He stood back up with a few clicking noises from his back, and a few muttered expletives. His first step away was  _slow_ , but the next was a more normal pace, and the one after that was completely fine.  _Clomp, clomp, clomp_  he went, away from me, away towards the door.  
  
I couldn’t help it; I exhaled long and hard. But there was no red, screeching madman to burst through the desk and grab me. They were gone.  
  
“Not here,” one of them said, kicking a random desk. “Let’s go, cops have gotta be on their way by now.”  
  
And just like that, they filed out through the busted door, and they were  _gone_. Just like that, tears started budding at my eyes. I started shaking as I drew myself out from underneath the ruined desk, and staggered towards the door. I wanted to go home.

***

_Taylor_

Moving for the first time in months without a swarm of bugs around was like stumbling around half-blind and almost fully deaf. For once I was fully aware of just how much more my powers made me aware, and how everyone else was just so… limited. How they could be so easily isolated and taken advantage of.  
  
I hadn’t moved any closer to the office Ridley was hiding in in over five minutes. The whole time I had been riveted to watching him hide from a few E88 members. The rest of my efforts had been spent making sure that none of his fear leaked through my bugs and gave me another panic attack.  
  
I was just starting to move towards him when I noticed that all of the thugs in the area were moving towards the warehouse directly next to where he had hidden. Ridley himself was moving, slowly, into the same building, completely unaware of both the E88 outside moving in, and the ABB already sitting inside. The whole night was going unbelievably wrong. As I began slinking around the area, I wondered if everyone might be better off if I didn’t try to be a hero.  
  
What I needed was some way to warn Ridley away from the gangs. If I could just send some kind of signal… It struck me then.  _Signal lights. Fireflies_. But a quick look over the area told me that the few fireflies I had had were gone, having flown off with most of my swarm when my control wavered.  
  
The thought was filed away in my head for later.  _I really should start breeding bugs_ , I thought, _just for situations like this_. It was good practice, really. ‘Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.’ Mom… Mom had said that a few times. I should have remembered it.  
  
Other ideas of what I might need in the future started flashing through my head. Some epipens for people allergic to my bugs was the first. Maybe some glue or tape? I shook my head and refocused on my swarm, trying to move them into better positions. I could worry about the little things later.  
  
A few flies running over it told me there was a set of stairs on the far side that led up to a second floor of the warehouse. Nobody else had spotted it, apparently. I checked to make sure that none of the gangers were looking my way before making a roundabout run towards the stairs, taking a detour around another building to make sure that my footsteps weren’t heard.  
  
Once I was actually in front of them, the stairs didn’t seem like such a good idea for staying undetected. They were made of thin metal, and had rusted in plenty of places. But the gangs had every other entrance covered, either from inside or out, so this was my best bet for getting in alive.  
  
My partner was already inside, having gotten in before the E88 had surrounded the place. He was slowly but blindly wandering around, twenty, maybe thirty feet from four ABB members. I had to warn him off somehow, it didn’t matter. I grabbed the closest bug to him that had wings, not really paying attention to what it was, and had it sting him.  
  
From where I was standing, the following ‘ow’ wasn’t that loud. But twenty-seven voices yelled it into my head, which meant that it had been  _very_ loud. Twenty-six also started murmuring other voices. Voices that were not in English, and were not at all friendly.

***

_Ridley_

_I’m dead._  
  
I’m dead and Taylor hates me.  
  
I’m dead, Taylor hates me, and it’s all because of a fucking bee sting.  
  
I couldn’t think much beyond those few sentences. There wasn’t much point either, as far as I could see. Which was currently about the three feet from me to the asian pointing a gun at me.  
  
He couldn’t have been much older than me, if at all. Maybe he even went to Winslow with me, and I had just never run into him. Would that have even mattered? Maybe he just had one of those faces, the ones I was completely unable to pick up the little differences in.  
  
I knew for sure I had no idea what language they were speaking. Chinese? Japanese? Indian? It all sounded the same to me. Three of the four guys were arguing about something or other, including one that had some stained bandages wrapped around his arm.  
  
“Fuck this, we needa go.” My breath caught. The guy pointing a gun at me moved closer, pressing the barrel fully against my chest. “We taking this piece of shit or not?” One of the others said something incomprehensible back to him. I think I heard the name ‘Lung’ somewhere in there.  
  
_Oh god, are they taking_  
  
**POW**


	12. Roil 2.6

_February 5, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
2:37 AM

Despite himself, Koji Wong couldn’t help but flinch as his gun fired. It wasn’t because he was new to this, the execution of prisoners. It wasn’t because he felt bad for the racist bitch, who looked ready to piss himself as soon as he came face to face with a real gang. And it certainly wasn’t because he felt, deep in his soul, that killing was wrong.  
  
No, he flinched because a 9mm going off in anything resembling close quarters was  _loud_. Koji had sensitive ears, and did not like loud noises. That was all.  
  
But there was no time for him to rub his ears until they stopped ringing, as he was usually allowed to do. No more than half a second later, more gunshots filled the deserted warehouse as the rest of the Empire came in, guns blazing. As a fearless ABB, Koji immediately ducked behind the crates his fellow gang members had arranged into crude cover.  
  
But he barely had time to squeeze off any shots himself, for soon another noise all but drowned out the firefight.  
  
A hideous,  _horrible_ droning echoed through the air. Koji momentarily flashed back to his home, and the fearmongering sound of an entire hive of killer hornets taking to the air. His heart skipped a beat as the past came alive, accompanied by the shriek of a young, tortured girl. But whether it came from his head or was heard anew, he did not know.  
  
Those horrible sounds echoed, and echoed, and ceaselessly built on themselves. Even as Koji put his hands over his ears, all he could hear were the screams, and the buzzing, neverending. They drove themselves into his head,  _writhing_ like needles in places he didn’t even know he had.  
  
His gun clattered to the ground as he tried to block out the sound by fully covering his ears, all for naught. And as the pain made him twist and turn, he fell to his side, and his eyes looked upon the corpse of the E88 dreg.  
  
Or at least, what had  _been_ a corpse.

***

_Ridley_

  
So much blood.  
  
 _This is wrong._  
  
All of it outside of me.  
  
 _This… this isn’t right. Nothing about this is right._  
  
I… wasn’t hurting as much as I thought I would. I couldn’t feel anything below my ribs. Anything above was just… cold. Numbed, but still… something.  
  
 _I shouldn’t… I can’t…_  I tried to force the sentences through. They wouldn’t come. It was impossible to... lie, now.  _I… won’t…_  
  
Everything faded out that wasn’t right in front of me. I looked at my hands, covered in… covered… cov-  
  
There was a poke in my chest. Then a punch. I coughed, there was a  _stab_. No air came in after the cough, just a  _shot_ -  
  
‘Shot through the heart’ sang in my head.  
  
 _Shot in the heart.  
  
Shot.  
  
Executed. Assassinated, murdered, finished terminated fatality butchered coup-de-grace killed.  
  
Killed dead._  
  
I remembered that, after the heart stops, there’s a few minutes where the brain still lives. Unable to do anything, yes, but still technically alive.  
  
 _Why me?  
  
Why am I dying?  
  
I shouldn’t die here. I… there’s so much I have to do. Like…_  
  
Nothing came to me, at first.  
  
 _… like fix this. I have to… I SHOULD fix this. This isn’t right. It’s wrong. Somebody fix this._  
  
I wasn’t sure if my hands were just shaking or if they were failing. I focused on them, telling them with every bit of will I had to stay up, to not fall.  _Don’t fall, that means I’m dead.  
  
Don’t fall._ They didn’t.  _Don’t fall_  they didn’t  _don’t_  didn’t  _don’t_  didn’t  _don’t_ didn’t didn’t matter because I couldn’t  _see where what happened who no fix this fix this it’s wrong nothing about this is wrong no right no NONONO-_

***

_swarm  
_

_find_

_why_

_dirge_

__  
eat  


_kill_

_savor_

_save_

__  
sing  


_hunt_

_smell_

_compose_

__  
where

 

_elegy_

***

The world  
  
froze  
  
black and white  
  
as I lost the strength to keep my head up.  
  
I looked at Taylor, high up on a catwalk. Her hands gripped the rail. Her eyes  _how can I see from here_  were shut, as she knelt in a paused scream.  _Why does she look familiar?_  
  
Eight Empire 88 grunts busted in through four doors _they’re not moving_  with their guns up. Light clung to the end of every barrel. Time itself had stopped as they fired  _the guy across from me fired he shot he KILLED ME-_  
  
Something was bubbling in the middle of frozen everything.  
  
I looked  
  
down.  
  
 _I’m bubbling,_  I thought. Little pockets of air moved through my skin, but I didn’t  _feel_ them. It didn’t make sense nothing here made sense  _am I going to die here?_  Did the world stop while an angel came to get me  _is that how it works of course it doesn’t there’s a stairway isn’t there?_  
  
I tilted my head to look at-  
  
 _KPOWPOWPOW_  
  
-the Asian but everything jerked when I moved.  
  
Then it stopped again.  
  
The ganger had  _jerked_ back. His eyes were so wide  _I didn’t know Asians could open their eyes that much_  in shock of… me?  
  
The bubbling got louder. I was  _boiling_ now.  _Evaporating_.  
  
Time started back up.  
  
I didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t do anything except reach out. The ABB’s hand jerked with the recoil of his shot. I grabbed onto his face with my hand, pushing him over and down to the ground. I didn’t moved so much as I  _flowed_ , off the ground and on top of this  _litter_ like a tide of physical wrath. The urge to just crush his skull with strength I didn’t have came and went.  
  
Instead, I flowed again, tumbling over myself and bodily flinging the thug with inhuman force. He soared through the air for at least thirty yards, then hit the ground and rolled for another five. He didn’t get back up, and even with the incredible sight that was lasting impossibly through that one second of time, I didn’t see him so much as twitch.  
  
Something stung my right side, like a bee-bee fired right next to my skin. I turned and sa- _flinched something hiteyethatstings-_ and another sting slapped my shoulder.  
  
One ABB, frantically pulling the trigger on his gun that wouldn’t fire. I could see, on it, one round sticking out the top.  
  
It was a miracle I was moving. But I was going to die. I was going to die.  
  
 _Better to burn out than fade away._  The singing, again.  
  
I... had to take as many of these  _gnatsnoTaylorlikesIlikegnats these VERMIN_  with me as I could.  
  
I rushed up to the other  _pest_. Time froze again for everyone but me as I stared into his eyes, at a loss what to do.  _Nothing complex_ , I decided,  _just grab his neck and squeeze_ , and we fell to the ground, him becoming unmoving, unbreathing. I looked for another victim, one more I could get to before I bled out, before the bullet that went into my heart could kill me.  
  
Instead I saw Taylor running towards me. Again things  _stopped_ as I looked and saw tears just… hanging in midair as she balanced on one foot. Her bugs flew in clumps and swarms and made one big, loud, dangerous bug-screen around us, around everything. I looked at her face. There was shock there, nothing else. I didn’t know what she was doing, didn’t she see me get shot?  
  
There was a pulsing in my head, and then a  _snap_ , and Taylor all but flew forward. She slid next to me on her knees, and put her hands on my shoulders. At least, I thought she did, I couldn’t quite feel them as much I would have normally. It was probably all the adrenaline in my system, I had heard it could mess with sensory input quite completely. It was probably the only thing keeping me alive.  
  
She started speaking, but I couldn’t quite make out her words. They were too fast, too choked, just utterly incomprehensible. I felt some of the frantic energy fading from me as she held me almost, but not quite upright. I knew that right there, I was going to die.  
  
I didn’t say anything witty, like I always wanted to. I just put my hand on her arm and held it as tightly as I could without hurting her. I smiled at her, trying to reassure her, even with how hard that would probably be with blood pouring out of my chest.  
  
I sat there, and waited for the last of my strength to leave. It took longer than I thought, or maybe it didn’t. But eventually, I felt heavy fingers pulling at my eyes, at my brain. I gave Taylor’s arm one last squeeze…  
  
… and felt myself fade away.

***

_??:?? AM_

_Taylor_

  
We were in… some shop at the edge of the Docks. It was abandoned, obviously, but it wasn’t boarded up very well. I wasn’t very strong, but with some termite help I was able to burst through the few planks that were still in place, and settle down in the least-dirtiest corner I could find. The oil-monster that was maybe Ridley, maybe not, I just dragged in with me, doing my best not to hurt him… it…  
  
I took another look at…  _God, is that even him?_  It almost didn’t matter at this point. This was my fault, it was  _all_ my fault. Events started running back in my head as I tried to sort out where I had gotten him killed.  
  
Letting him come with me was a mistake. That much was certain.  
  
He…  _it_ shifted again. The sight of it appearing just kept flashing through my mind, over and over. Ridley was there one moment, the next he was gone, and there was this boiling, black body like oil sitting in his place. It had just lashed out before anyone even realized it was there, then… collapsed. Like a… a starving dog, or something like that. Ridley or not, I had just thought ‘ _I have to get him out of here_ ’.  
  
I had no idea what to do.  
  
What even  _could_ I do?  
  
I looked over at the oily human-thing yet again. It had the silhouette of a person, vaguely. The most obvious thing about it was that all of the oil seemed to be… well, maybe bubbling wasn’t the right word for it. It had been boiling at first, but now it sort of just flowed up. That was, it was flowing towards the sky, but when it was just about to leave the body of the thing, it kind of just gave up and sank back down. The only parts of it that weren’t pitch-black were where the eyes were supposed to be, just thin lines of white. Maybe oil-eyelids?  
  
There were a few capes out there who had bodies that weren’t flesh and blood. Mostly Case 53’s, though I knew of at least a few local capes whose powers turned them into something not-human. Hookwolf, for one, though that might just be the way he used his powers. Night turned into something when nobody was looking at her, it was unclear what. Lung  _definitely_ fit the bill.  
  
A shiver came over me as I realized it was getting really cold. A quick look around told me this had been… a print shop? I could see a few printers of all sizes, some big industrial copies, and empty rolls of all sizes. Nothing that could be used for blankets or anything. Frustrated, I curled up in a ball to try and keep some heat from being sapped away by the winter chill.  
  
My thoughts drifted back to maybe-Ridley. If this… _Oh, I don’t even know_. I watched him die. I FELT him die. But…  
  
I felt a little stupid for thinking ‘because superpowers’. But that was the way the world worked, wasn’t it? Things happened ‘because superpowers’. Lives were ruined ‘because superpowers’. People were saved ‘because superpowers’. Ridley might still be alive _because superpowers._  It was worth checking. I wasn’t willing or able to drag home a corpse.  
  
It struck me that I was responsible for at least two other people being dead. My stomach turned at the thought, but to me all that mattered was making sure that number didn’t go up to three. Number three would… it would…  
  
 _What am I even supposed to do_ , I wondered as I scooched over to the muck-body, _poke it with a stick?_  That was the best idea I could come up with, but honestly I wasn’t trying very hard.  
  
A better idea came to me as I stared at the bubbling black mass. I called on my swarm, bringing a small cloud of buzzing bugs into the print shop. I had them set down in two groups, one on either side of the head. Once they were in place, I covered my ears and muted their own hearing, then had them start buz _singing.  
  
Canto forte,_ I thought. Then,  _I don’t know… Spanish? Italian?_  
  
The buzzing of my orchestra started off low, soft, but I pushed them louder as fast as they would go, with only two hundred seventy-three bugs soon making the same noise as a mass four times their number. That number that had seemingly materialized while we were in the warehouse, and now roamed the Docks in clouds.  
  
I still heard a dull humming despite how I tried to block it out, and for the first time I was aware of how unnerving the singing really sounded. It wasn’t even ten seconds before the oil-person started moving. As soon as they did I stopped the buzzing, and moved to lean over them.  
  
As the thin white lines on their face opened up, they expanded into solid, pale circles. There was no blinking, I noticed, just a blank, emotionless stare from their eyes to mine. There were no more features that appeared as the person woke up, but all the same they still spoke like they had a mouth.  
  
“Taylor.”  
  
It…  _sounded_ like him. Sort of.  
  
“Here,” I said.  
  
Ridley- it had to be him, I knew it was him- looked around the shop, his new eyes flowing across his inky skin with perfect smoothness. His gaze drank in everything around us, before settling on me.  
  
“I’m sorry.”

***

_Ridley_

_5:25 AM_

Getting back home was a slow process. Neither I nor Taylor were at one-hundred percent, and weariness wasn’t the only thing that slowed our trip down.  
  
There was a pall, no other word for it, over us. After all, we had just been in a life-or-death situation, and I was pretty sure I  _had_ died.  
  
But I was alive. And that was... It wasn't quite clicking with me.  
  
I held out my hand in front of me for the fourth time that night, looking over myself. I had no real physical features anymore, which was almost nice considering I never really liked what I had before. Skinny in some places, fat everywhere else. But something I wasn’t too sure on was how I was able to just, well…  
  
I heard a groan next to me. Taylor, of course, as she watched me make a fist, then relax my fingers, then make a fist in reverse, with the back of my hand now serving as my palm.  
  
“That’s wrong,” she muttered, shivering.  
  
“No it’s not,” I snapped, more harshly than I meant to. “It feels fine. Like I don’t have bones to hold me back anymore.”  
  
Taylor shook her head, pointedly not looking at me. I ignored her for the most part, and started testing out the full range of motion my fingers had.  
  
I had… discovered some things, about my new powers. About my new self. Nothing besides the obvious, really. I was literally just a human-shaped blob of oil. Or ink. Or lubricant. Or some petroleum-based product, I had no idea. But the important thing was, as I had said, that I had no trace of a skeleton left. Or anything needed for life, really.  
  
I wondered briefly if doctors would still do that reflex-thing with the hammer if I didn’t have kneecaps to do it with.  
  
“What am I going to do…” Taylor murmured to herself.  
  
I didn’t answer her. Things were not good right now. It’d be absolute stupidity to try and figure anything out before we at least got decent sleep. That is, if I even slept anymore. My memory was a little fuzzy at the moment, but I recalled that some Case 53’s were so far removed from human they didn’t sleep anymore. And that wasn’t even considering the stories you could hear about perfectly human military veterans who couldn’t sleep after having experienced things way less traumatic than  _dying_.  
  
We turned onto Taylor’s street just as the horizon was starting to tinge red. The both of us stopped on the sidewalk just in front of her house, looking at one another. I could see her eyes darting around before she eventually just looked down.  
  
“S-see you… see you Sunday?” I asked, tilting my head. I had no idea if my blank face changed at all when I tried to smile, but from Taylor’s reaction I was betting the answer was ‘no’.  
  
Her hands clenched and unclenched a few times. She didn’t reply to me at first, just kind of twitching this way and that, like she wanted to lead into three different sentences but just couldn’t decide what to say. Eventually I just got a shaky nod, then she turned around and all but ran inside.  
  
I sighed and let my shoulders droop.  _At least I don’t have to worry about bad posture anymore,_  I noted.  
  
Not wanting to be seen when the sun finally came up, I turned and started running back to my own home. Maybe I would just stay locked in my room all day. It’d be easier than explaining to my mother what had happened.

***

_5:40 AM_

I had had keys on me when I left. But they, along with my clothes, had vanished, and I had no idea what I was going to do about that So, getting in without them had involved a vigorous use of my new powers. It had taken me awhile to figure out that having no bones meant I could just slide right under the front door without a sound, just like on TV.  
  
The disappearance of all the kitchen knives, I thought as I passed the block by, would take some explaining. But that was something I decided to put off for later, along with the whole ‘oil monster’ schtick I had going on. I made a beeline for my room, sliding under that door as well, just for shits and giggles. I was slightly concerned about staining my sheets black, but after the night I had that was nowhere near the top of my list of priorities.  
  
I collapsed quietly onto my bed, still in a human shape. I closed my eyes and let out the latest of many deep sighs, ready to fall asleep and not wake up for a week.  
  
 _I should be dead._  
  
My eyes snapped open.  
  
 _I don’t even have a corpse._  
  
I stared at the ceiling.  
  
 _I’m not dead._  
  
My chest started to tighten and heave. But the pressure around my eyes, which had followed suit for my entire life, didn’t come for the first time.  
  
 _I’m not alive._  
  
Oh god, what AM I?  
  
All I could do was gasp and heave, but not a single drop of water came from my eyes. The coil in my chest just continued to tighten, with no way to release the tension. Not until something snapped, and and I could feel fabric on my skin in the moment before I fell unconscious.


	13. Roil 2.7

_February 8, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
11:48 AM

_Taylor_

However disastrous our first night out as superheroes had been, both Ridley and I found it almost impossible to force ourselves back to school.  
  
Brockton Bay wasn’t the same as it had been a few days ago. Nothing had changed about it, really, but now it seemed so much more dangerous. The gangs weren’t some threat that was mostly out of sight, out of mind. Groups of guys with shaved heads were no longer just in the background, they were thugs who could kill someone at any moment. The same went for green-and-purple-garbed asians. The gang colors flying around Winslow suddenly took on a much more direct meaning.  
  
And despite all that, things were…  _normal_. Like the weekend hadn’t even happened.  
  
Case in point, Ridley and I made it a habit to sit together at lunch whenever possible. Today was no different in that regard, but it was in other ways. Mundane ways, ones that didn't matter in my new, broader perspective.  
  
For starters, there was usually some kind of conversation between us. I had done my best to shut those down the at first, but since then I’d more or less just let Ridley talk my ear off. It was all ‘business talk’, of course, but he didn’t seem to get tired of it, and it made a nice distraction.  
  
I looked up at him, and had to force back the wetness in my eyes yet again. He didn’t seem to notice, or really care, just kept picking at his lunch in small bites. Between the two of us he seemed to be taking things better, if I was being honest.  
  
The one silver lining to this whole thing was that I hadn’t been harrassed nearly as much by Sophia, and not at all by Emma or Madison. Maybe they’d sensed how off we were and were preparing for something big. Maybe they were just going to jump us on our way home, who knew.  
  
Ridley made a noise, a half-scoff, half-growl, as he pushed his lunch away from himself. I jumped at his sudden movement, something I felt a little embarrassed for as he raised an eyebrow at me, glowering.  
  
“Really?” he asked, his voice low.  
  
“Sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. Ridley looked at me for a moment, his scowl slowly softening.  
  
“Stop doing that,” he said, now sounding more annoyed than angry. “Stop… apologizing.”  
  
“Why?” I asked. “It’s… it’s my fault.”  
  
“It’s not,” he protested. “It was mine. It was my idea to… you know. You set boundaries, I ignored them.” He waved his hand absently as he talked. “Can we both just agree things could have been worse, and weren’t? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”  
  
“No,” I answered, “but you-”  
  
“Enough. I’m here now, that’s all that matters. Not what… what could have…” Ridley trailed off, staring into the table absently.  
  
“My, my, my” a soft voice came from behind us. Emma, of course, I’d recognize her voice anywhere. “What’s going on Taylor? Having a little lover’s quarrel?”  
  
I didn’t say anything back. It wasn’t worth the effort, especially considering that Ridley was still staring blankly ahead, his eyes a million miles away. Emma giggled and moved around the table to stand next to him, her arms folded comfortably across her chest.  
  
“Nothing to say, either of you?” she asked. I did a quick mental check of the lunchroom, realizing quickly that she was completely without backup, for once. So was I, in a way.  
  
Emma kept talking. “That’s too bad,” she said, her voice full of pity. She nudged Ridley’s shoulder with her hip, saying “From what I’m hearing, you could do much better Ridley.” Her eyes flicked to me. “Much better than poor, sad Taylor.”  
  
He shook his head, snapping out of whatever spaced-out state he had been in. In the moment it took for him to get his bearings, Emma was already moving around us again, talking as she went.  
  
“Of course, I can see how you two would end up together,” she said, smiling that little smile she did whenever she was getting to her punchline. I finally started to realize she thought we were  _dating_ , a thought that made me a little sick.  
  
“Stop talking Barnes,” Ridley muttered, hunching over in his seat.  
  
She didn’t, of course. “Oh come now, everyone can see it. You two sit together whenever you can, it’s not so hard to guess. Jessie said she saw you two running together last week.”  
  
“It’s just exercise,” I blurted out.  
  
Emma’s smile turned ‘knowing’. “Of course, Taylor. But it’s not to hard to guess what happens when you’re all done. All hot and sweaty, right?”  
  
_BANG_  
  
Both of us jumped as Ridley slammed his hand down on the table, still not looking up. My heart skipped a beat as I saw his eyes flicker to a pure, blank white. It was only for a split second, thank God.  
  
“Fuck off, you little brat,” he growled over his shoulder.  
  
Emma raised a hand to her mouth in mock offense. “How rude of you,” she gasped. “Didn’t your parents teach you how to treat a lady?”  
  
“A lady, yeah,” he said, finally standing up to look Emma in the face. “They also told me how to treat a bitch.”  
  
I winced in my seat. That didn’t sound anywhere near as good as he probably thought it did. Not wanting things to go any further, I stood up as well. “Ridley,” I warned softly. “Just let it go.”  
  
He glanced at me for a moment. I sent a bug to buzz near his ear, hoping that this time he would get the message. After a tense moment, it seemed like he did, as he sat back down and didn’t say anything else.  
  
Emma let out another little giggle, not willing just leave us alone. “See you two lovebirds around,” she taunted, finally walking away.  
  
I sighed quietly as she left, hoping that soon the audience we had would lose interest. As bad as that had been, the fact that Emma hadn’t brought any backup was something to definitely be grateful for. Now that we were alone again, I tried to restart our conversation, but Ridley ignored me. Instead, he bent over to pick something up off the ground. I saw what it was as he stood up, just an ordinary pen.  
  
“Barnes!” he called out.“You dropped this.” When she turned around, he smiled and lobbed the pen to her.  
  
I watched what happened next almost in slow motion. Emma flinched at first, then went to catch the pen thrown towards her. She did, if a bit sloppily. But when her hands had fully closed around the it, it literally  _exploded_ like an overfilled balloon.  
  
When most people have their pens break, it’s just a splatter of ink in one place. But this was like there had been a small bomb inside the plastic. Ink erupted out to cover Emma from head to toe, her no doubt expensive and colorful clothes now stained pitch black. She stood there with a shocked look on her face, staring at the pieces of plastic still in her hand like they might blow up again.  
  
Ridley sat back down with a less-than-kind smile, and winked. “The key,” he said softly, leaning in closer to me, “is to make it look like something natural.”  
  
I felt a flash of satisfaction at watching Emma finally get a piece of what she deserved. That was immediately countered by a stab of dread, realizing that Ridley had used his powers to make it happen. Something I told myself I would never do, but in the flash of a pen-bomb, suddenly looked  _much_ more attractive.  
  
“You can’t do that,” I whispered back, watching through my bugs as one of the teachers came over to escort Emma to the bathroom. “You know she’s going to make our lives hell for this.”  
  
He scoffed and sat back in his seat, looking angrily around at everywhere but me. “Tay. It’s not getting any worse than it already was.”  
  
He meant the…  _there. Yeah, there. He was there_ , I reminded myself, and not for the first time.  
  
“Still,” I argued, “that not very heroic.”  
  
“You can’t save anyone before you save yourself,” he said, crossing his arms. “Besides, aren’t you tired of being pushed around all the time?”  
  
“Yes, but going back and forth with this isn’t the answer.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “What is, then? If you have a better idea, lemme hear it.”  
  
“I don’t know,” I sighed, “I just know that this isn’t how we should… you know.”  
  
Ridley sighed angrily. "Tay, every time I see them, I get angry. They never do anything good, for us, or for anyone they know. If that's not villainy, what is?"  
  
He shook his head and scowled. "There's only end to all this. Either us," he gestured between us, "or them," he waved in Emma's direction, "is gonna throw a punch so hard, the other side doesn't get back up. They threw the first one."  
  
I knew where he was going with this. And I  _hated_ how the choir sung back to me.  
  
"We're gonna throw the last."

***

 _February 11, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
9:47 PM

_Ridley_

“Ridley, stop ya stompin’!”  
  
My mother, of course, was yelling at me like always. I wasn’t stomping of course, just pacing around, but far be it from me to keep her from upsetting herself. Still, to keep her from physically coming into my room with all my cape notes spread out, I fell back onto my bed, sitting down on one of three spots that weren’t covered in notes or articles.  
  
There was a purpose to this mess. Almost overnight, the few thoughts I had about helping Skitter as a hero had changed, crystallized into a plan. Before I had been helping because Taylor was my friend. It was an obligation to support her. But now…  
  
Now I could  _do_ things no mere human could. Sure, I didn’t have the strength of Alexandria. I couldn’t reach out and touch people like Legend, or create fantastic inventions as Hero did.  
  
But I was invincible. This, I knew. I had been shot, had stabbed myself, tried burning myself on the stove. I hadn’t boiled into nothing. Bullets felt like BB’s. I could either harden enough to break blades, or soften to the point they passed through me like the oil I was made of. Could be made of, if I was being accurate.  
  
I let myself shift from flesh and blood to oil and goop. With the change came a stillness, as all my thoughts lined up and were filed in order. Every whim and fleeting idea was thrown out the window. I liked to think that was why my ‘skin’ flowed and flared like it did, all my mental motion turned into physical.  
  
I looked down at the pages still in my hand with perfect vision. Every time I changed I reveled in not needing the glasses I had stuck to my face all my life.  _This is what being normal is like_ , I thought.  _What being right feels like._  
  
The header on the first page was ‘Empire 88’. The first set of targets on my official Shit List. The pages were set beside me, along with others marked with every parahuman-containing group I could find in Brockton Bay. Not just the big gangs, but other, smaller-time organizations that not everyone considered. The Crew, the Coil Organization, the Undersiders. There might have been more than that, but for now the six big ones were enough to focus on. I had my work cut out for me with just the few teams I had physcially listed out. Maybe ‘our’ work, if I included Taylor. Two heads were better than one, after all.  
  
If we wanted to clean up the Bay, we would have to start small. E88 may have been at the top of my Shit List, but they were at the bottom of our priorities. They were a huge gang, and we would need some serious firepower before we took them on. It would be better to wait until the other five… six groups were dealt with.  
  
My thoughts drifted to the Protectorate. Their stack of papers were directly behind me, comprising every cape and Ward they had in the city. Perhaps the papers would have been out of reach before my powers, but now it was easy to reach back in a way that my normal body wouldn’t allow. It took a few seconds, fumbling around where my eyes didn’t see, but soon I was flipping through my little dossiers on the big ticket heroes and their proteges.  
  
I wasn’t fundamentally opposed to them, of course, we wanted the same things. But as I had recently found out, and honestly suspected for long time, they were horribly inept at their jobs. Flashy and cool, but so, so dumb. How else would the sheer number of villains be explained? Actually, it was more that that number didn’t  _change_ , rather than that there was a number at all. People were good and bad, I understood, usually the latter. But the good triumphed over bad because nothing the bad did was  _right_. Eventually those people who fell somewhere in between were so disturbed by what the bad did, that the latter was wiped out or locked up and forgotten.  
  
The question wasn’t whether the Protectorate was good. They were. But they were so  _bad_ at being good, maybe it was better if they weren’t even on the table.  
  
I nodded to myself, coming to a decision.  _I’ll salvage what I can_ , I thought.  _What can’t be repurposed, I’ll… dispose of._  
  
One focus group down, I continued planning well into the night.

 

***

_February 13, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
8:19 AM

 

_Taylor_

I looked in the mirror with two eyes.

Three looked back. Then the third blinked and looked away, as it did every time I stared at it.

Two of the them were my own. Brown, plain, and nearsighted. Nothing special about them. My reflection was a little fuzzy without my glasses, but I could see clearly enough to make out most of my features. Including the eye staring out from my arm.

There was a large splotch of… I guessed it was ink. Like a tattoo. The edges of the blemish were definitely there, under my skin, but towards the center it sort of… grew upwards. Right in the middle, it was like a puddle of oil that just stuck to my skin, no matter how much scrubbing or scratching I did to get it off.

And in the middle of that puddle, there was a little, pupil-less eye. It was almost cartoonish with how simple it was, just a white dot in a sea of black. I could barely make out the lid around it. But it was definitely an eye. I just  _knew_ it was an eye, the same way I knew every bug that was in room with me. That out of every blurred, incomplete perspective that they whispered into my head, there was one among them that was less a song, more of a croak, slightly blurry, very much moving on its own.

I could touch it without feeling anything, which was… not bad, for sure, but I wasn’t confident it was good, either. Ridley was the far bigger concern, at the moment.

However indirectly, I was responsible for him… _they really do call it ‘triggering’ for a reason, don’t they?_  Just that thought alone, that I had put him in the worst position imaginable, forced him through the worst moment of his life, was weighing on me like a pile of bricks.

How was I even supposed to talk about that to him? ‘ _Oh, I’m sorry for you almost dying last week?_ ’ I hunched over the bathroom sink and stared into the mirror, at the eye-splotch on my arm. The thought came that he might consider us even after just giving me an unwanted parahuman tattoo job. I laughed a little bit, but it wasn’t a funny laugh, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise.

And yet, he was right downstairs, probably on his fourth glass of water by now. We kept running together. We kept working together. Like nothing had ever happened. I could go downstairs this very moment, and just…  _talk_ to him.

I had been so close to losing someone important to me, for the  _third_ time. And again, it had been _all my fault_.

I wondered if maybe this was payback. This little eye on my skin that would stay on for the rest of my life, whispering in a hoarse voice to remind me of everything I had done to other people. Every time I was too needy, or abandoned someone, or just didn’t  _do_ enough for them.

_What’s next?_ I wondered, glancing over my shoulder towards the bathroom door.  _Who else do I have to lose? What else am I going to do wrong?_

***

_February 26, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
12:57 PM_

_Ridley_

I had never seen it in person, but the Boat Graveyard was well-named. With the tide gone out for several hours, dozens of empty ship hulks sat on the bottom of the Bay, some even piled on top of others to peek out just above the absent waves. Spending so much time with Mr. Hebert had given me an almost scholarly amount of knowledge about it. But the most basic bit was that it was where Brockton Bay’s shipping industry had gone to die, when news of Leviathan hunting freighters had covered the news from morning till night.

But that was before people got it through their heads that giving up meant things would be far worse than simply pushing through. Taylor’s dad, among others, had pushed to keep the boats going and the industry alive, and they had succeeded, if not as much as they would have liked. And sure enough, the maritime monster had slowed his attacks, as time went on. Almost like it had gotten  _bored_.

Still, as Taylor and I stood on a pier overlooking the Graveyard, I had to thank those who had given up and simply sank their boats in the harbor. Without them, there would be no power-testing playground for Skitter and…

Well, I was still working on a name.

“There”, Taylor pointed at a seemingly random hulk. It looked like a small tug boat, only there was but a single wall remaining of the cabin. “We’ll practice there.”

“Any reason in particular?” I asked, gesturing at the Graveyard. “There’s a whole bunch of ships just lying around.”

“Closest one that’s level,” she replied instantly, as always. And also as always, she was right. If we lost track of time and the tide came back unnoticed, we’d have an easier time getting to dry land from there.

Nothing else was said as we hopped down to the bay bottom. One good thing about being non-solid meant that I sort of just splashed onto the ground, instead of just hitting it.

There was a muffled thump next to me as Taylor hit the ground, followed by a curse. I glanced back, then tried not to laugh as she struggled with her foot, now completely buried in the wet sand. “It’s not funny,” she protested.

“Oh yes it is,” I chuckled, watching her as she tried to wiggle, pull, and jerk her way free.

“Would you be laughing if it was you?”

“No, I’d just pull my foot out.”

“Trying.”

I shook my head. “Well, since you’re so stuck in your ways,” a groan sounded from my partner, “I’ll go on ahead. Catch you later.”

“I hate you, Birdie.”

I didn't say anything. Just my luck too, that Taylor managed to get her foot free just as I turned to leave. She shook off a few clumps of mud before huffing and walking past me.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Just for that, you’re going first.”

I fell in step beside her. “First for what?”

“First for power testing.” Her eyes flicked to me. “I have no idea what your powers actually  _do_ , you know. That trick with the pen a few weeks ago? I had no idea you could do that.”

I blinked. “I told you, it was a spur of the moment thing. That wasn’t ink, though, it was…” I looked down at myself. “Well, it was me. Whatever ‘me’ is.”

“Do you ever listen to yourself?” she asked, exasperated. “You sound stupid.”

“Yeah? Well, you sound stupider.” I shot back.

Taylor stopped, letting walk a few paces past her. When looked back, she took a big breath and started pounding on her chest with a fist. “I am Ridley,” she grunted, in a very poor imitation of me. “I will defend you with my honor. I can’t run a few miles. I will not get mad, I will get even!”

“Okay, cut it out,” I chuckled. “You sound like a-”

Taylor stomped past me, then turned back and started thumping her chest before speaking yet again. “You sound silly Taylor, listen to me! I am the smart one! I am the strong one! I will protect you!”

I took a step back. “Taylor-”

She marched straight up to me and grabbed fistfuls of oil. I could see her eyes through the lenses of her mask, wide with  _something_. “I am not going to listen to you! I am going to go play hero! I’m going to go get myself KILLED!”

I stared at her. I wasn’t sure what I felt. I wasn’t sure what I  _should_ have felt.

It would have been easy to just slide the oil she gripped out from her hands, but the symbolism was important. Instead, I put my hands over hers and spoke softly, “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say anything back. She just kept staring my eyes, trying to blink away her tears. She didn’t look right like that, just barely composed. It just wasn’t  _right_ …

“Say it again,” she whispered. When I tilted by head in confusion, she coughed and gripped me tighter. “Say it like you mean it.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant. So I repeated myself, but only got a punch in the shoulder as a response. “No!” Taylor yelled. “Don’t give that ‘everything is fine’ act! Say it, Ridley!”

Ridley. Not… whoever I was as my other self.  _Does that mean that it’s Tay asking, and not Skitter? Is there a difference? Is there a difference for me?_

Turning back to my normal self felt odd, in that situation, but I did regardless. I had remembered to dress in my costume beforehand, so at the very least I didn’t have to worry about some nearby hobo catching a glimpse of my face.

Taylor’s grip stayed strong as the oil in her grip became leather, and the face she was starting at turned to flesh once more. She didn’t even bat an eye, which was surprising. I hadn’t stayed that calm when I first watched myself change.

I made a fist and pressed it against my chest. “Tay,” I said, my voice low and soft. “I’m sorry. I thought I knew better than you. I was wrong. I’ll never do it again.”

Without my power, I couldn’t see her eyes past the lenses that covered them. I fact, I could hardly see her at all. It struck me then just how intimidating Skitter, the hero, looked. Shadow Stalker may have carried the archetype of anti-hero, but to me Skitter looked the part far more than she did. There was nothing mysterious about her, what you saw was what you got. It was better, in a way.

She didn’t let go for a long time. I kept my am across my chest for the entire time she gripped my coat, long enough that it started to ache. But I didn’t want to be the first one break form. That would be as good as saying I didn’t mean what I had just said.

Skitter’s arms slowly loosened, then just… fell. In the little light I could see by, I was almost sure she was slumping. But I didn’t change back, not yet.

“Just…” She paused. “I… you can’t… “

“Tay?”

There was silence, save for some buzzing as her swarms began to draw closer.

“We won't get that lucky again,” she said. “Maybe you're fine now, but you weren't then. What was I supposed to do if you died?”

I knew a rhetorical question when I heard one. Taylor shook her head and turned away, leaving me to change back out of her sight. I never got tired of the rush that doing so brought. In this case, it helped take my mind off my upset partner.

“How about hide and seek?” I offered. “Seeker has to tag with their power.”

I thought I heard a laugh, or maybe a cough coming from Taylor, but even with my improved eyes I couldn't make out any movements to go with it.

“Sure,” she sighed. “I'm seeking first.”

***

_2:34 AM_

From my newest hiding spot in the ruined engine room of a former fishing boat, I peered out into the Graveyard, alert for the slightest shimmer of motion in the air. Skitter had at least three swarms out and about, roaming around separate from her own body. What I had imagined as a fun distraction had quickly turned into a rapidly pace-shifting, no-mercy, flip-flop hunting experience.

And Skitter was a  _merciless_ hunter. There was no place she couldn’t go with her power, no hidey-hole too obscure for her to find. I had quickly figured out she was using every sense available to her, because she was able to pick me out from other oily debris every single time.

By contrast, I was almost the perfect prey. When we had first started, Skitter was still thinking like a person, and I had been too. But as we kept going, I found myself hiding in spots that were more and more cramped, and eventually remembered that I didn’t have to restrict myself to human-sized spaces. So I had gone from concealing myself in corners and behind walls, to squeezing into cupboards, toolboxes, and other places that only a malleable pile of oily gunk could fit in.

Hence the engine room. And the engine, in particular.

Of course, our whole ‘training’ felt like it had taken forever. Skitter’s ability to tag me from three hundred feet away made it as hard for me to hide as it was to find  _her_. I could see clearly in the night, could hear a little better than my normal self could, but that was it. I didn’t have the senses of a legion to spread out and look for her, nor did I have the ability to split my attention fifty billion different ways. Having no obvious nervous or skeletal systems was nice, though. It meant that I felt no discomfort as I flowed into all the cracks and crevices of the ruined boat engine, and peeked out an hole in the casing.

I’d hidden not a moment too soon, apparently. What little moonlight shone in through the wrecked hull was casting against the far wall. But while I should have stared at a flat, unmoving surface, there quickly came a faint rustling noise, coming from a horde of insects that skittered and sprinted along the walls of the boat.

The once-flat wall I was staring at seemed to bubble and flow like my own skin, distorting in the moonlight as hundreds of little bodies moved across it, all of them guided by an invisible hand. They froze not long after entering, almost literally.

I got the distinct feeling we were staring at one another.

In a weirdly deliberate motion, the layer of bugs started to peel off from the wall, forming a circle in the air. I continued to lay silent as the edges of the circle started to pulse and bulge, making all sorts of weird shapes. Squares, triangles and others all came and went, until finally the swarm settled into an all-too-familiar shape.

A crosshair.

I cursed to myself for the fourth time. It wasn’t an outright tag, but it was as good as one. I heard Taylor’s voice calling from far away, but not well enough to understand what she was saying. Every time prior it’d been a silent tag, so I guessed that she was done with our ‘training’.

The swarm collapsed back into a normal cloud as I flowed out of the engine, resuming my normal humanoid shape. I had just about drawn every bit of myself back to me when I heard a the groan of overtaxed metal, and a piece of the ceiling fell down to neatly sever my arm halfway through reassembling itself.

The lack of pain was probably the only reason I didn’t start screaming as I stared at my brand new stump.

The oily goop that should have been my arm just sort of… slopped out of the engine and onto the floor. It had lost all cohesion and energy, and for all intents and purposes just seemed like about a pint of normal oil.

My arm, on the other hand, was neither bleeding nor aching in the slightest. I stared at my stump, moved it around, both in its normal position as well as relocating the entire arm to my chest to examine it more closely. A sneaking suspicion started to build in my head.

I knelt down next to the puddle. The hints of oil left in the engine hadn’t meshed with my own at all, and I had been aware of them the whole time as little clumps of space I couldn’t occupy. I had assumed it was because there was something about my body that was different from natural oil. But I had never actually  _tested_ that.

The puddle of oil clung to my intact hand as soon as I came in contact with it. But it didn’t immediately do anything, such as return to where it came from, or even try and reform my arm right where it had reattached.

A trio of clanging noises echoed through the boat.  _Skitter_ , I realized.  _How long have I been standing here?_

Without thinking about things any further, I melted down and flowed out through the cracks in the hull. This had me end up right next to a waiting Skitter, her arms folded and what I imagined must have been an impatient expression behind her mask.

“We’re done, I’m assuming,” I said as I reformed, fully intact.

Skitter tilted her head to the side. “We are. We’re going home.”

If she was aware of what had happened, I was thankful she wasn’t making a big fuss about it. So I just nodded in deference to her, and followed as she turned and started guiding us out of the Graveyard.

***

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later when Skitter stopped in her tracks and jerked her head to the side. Something had obviously caught her attention.

“Skitter.”

She tilted her head towards me. “Five gangbangers. Two women, they’re in fear.”

I didn’t say anything else. Part of me wanted to jump at the chance to get involved. But another part reminded me I had to follow Skitter’s lead.

She took one step towards the unseen scene. It was slow, unsure. Unbalanced, almost.

“We’re heroes,” I reminded her. “But sometimes heroes… have to pick their battles.”

That clearly made up her mind, because she set off at a jog without another word. She didn’t need to say anything, of course. I was already right behind her.


	14. Roil 2.8

_February 26, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
2:42 AM_

_Taylor_

I had thought about disabling the ABB thugs from the moment they had come into my range. It would have been easy to just distract them with painful bites until they either fled or were in too much pain to fight back against me and Ridley. But with two hostages present I didn’t want to take the risk. I had decided to never put people in danger again, if I could help it.  
  
That was one lesson I was  _never_ going to forget.  
  
With the song in the air, I could still see Ridley, even though I wasn’t looking directly at him. He walked as if nothing was wrong, like we weren’t going to go beat up a bunch of mutes and save some people.  
  
“Birdie,” I called.  
  
“I will hit you,” he responded.  
  
“How hard can you do that?” I asked.  
  
He was quiet for a moment. “Good question.”  
  
Nothing came after that, and I was about to assume that he had no more strength than a normal person. But as we passed a wooden Stop sign, he stopped, pulled back a fist, and punched it.  
  
The sign broke without a hint of resistance. Ridley raised his arms above his head.  
  
“Answer,” he said, “hard enough for property damage.”  
  
I actually turned around to look at the sign. It wasn’t some 2x4 that had been holding it up. It was a thick pole, one that you usually saw used for fences, now splintered in two. Come to think of it, as I looked around, he had picked the one sign that didn’t have a metal pole holding it.  
  
“I guess that’s hard enough,” I muttered. “Try not to hit a person that hard, okay?”  
  
“Of course,” he said, without a hint of humor. “I’m not Glory Girl.”  
  
“No you’re not,” I agreed, turning back to keep leading us forward. “She’s much better looking.”  
  
There was a choking noise behind me. “An ally has been slain!”

***

I stopped us one block away from where the ABB were holed up. I figured it was far enough away that we could make a plan, while still being close enough to jump in if they suddenly made a move.  
  
Through the senses of my bugs, I had a vague idea of the building they were occupying. But there was music in air, something I couldn’t quite get a grasp on, and it left me with a picture even hazier than usual. I took a few more moments to double-check my own estimations, before I made any mistakes with the plan forming in my head.  
  
“How are we playing this?” Ridley asked from behind me.  
  
“Two hostages,” I reminded him. “We need to keep them safe.”  
  
“How many bugs do you have?” he asked.  
  
“A lot,” I smirked, even though he couldn’t see it. “Enough to cover five people.”  
  
He hummed an affirmative. “Right. I think… huh. Can you cover me while I get the VIP’s out?”  
  
“You’re not going in there by yourself,” I snapped. “No if’s, and’s, or but’s.”  
  
“So what  _am_ I going to do?” he asked, folding his arms. “I can’t just send out little ink-monsters to cover them from here.”  
  
He was right, there wasn’t much he cou- _wait_.  
  
“The pen,” I muttered.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The pen,” I said, louder this time. “You made it explode, right? Without touching it?”  
  
“No, I-” he started, but cut himself off. “I… primed it? Yeah, I told it to blow when it got caught.”  
  
“Do the same thing here,” I told him. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t hurt when you take a piece of yourself off, does it?”  
  
“Nah” he shook his head, and just like  _that_ he pulled his left hand off. A new one flowed into place a second later, as the old one lost form and became a separate ball of oil in his hand. “Remind me to weigh myself later, though. A few pounds for a hand has got to come from somewhere.”  
  
He was right, but we couldn’t worry about that at the moment. “Right, when I give the signal-”  
  
“Hang on,” Ridley cut me off. He picked a little blob off the ball in his hand and lobbed it to me. “Catch.”  
  
I did, with both hands. “What are you-” I started, before I realized my hands were stuck. Stuck around the little blob, which clung to my costume like superglued rubber.  
  
“That’s… that’s amazing!” I said, smiling despite myself. Ridley’s blank white eyes were scrunched up just a bit, giving the impression of a shit-eating grin.  
  
“I think I can change any feature about me,” he said, stepping forward to tap the blob holding my hands. It melted on contact and flowed right back into his hand. “Hardness, elasticity, adhesiveness.”  
  
I did my best to bite my lip and not say anything.  
  
He could tell, though. “What?”  
  
“Nothing,” I snickered. “Just… nothing.” I cleared my throat and pointed towards the hideout. “Move up across the street. I’ll drive them out, you hit them with some of those-” I struggled not to say ‘balls’- “sticky grenades.”  
  
Ridley looked down at the glob. “You have no idea what horrifying idea you’ve just given me.”  
  
“Move,” I ordered.

***

_Ridley_

Skitter’s swarms led me to the building we were going to hit, stopping me just across the street as she had planned. One small cloud remained buzzing around me, the rest flew out of sight.  
  
I was looking at what once must have been a pleasant little shop. Dormant neon signs, in both chinese and japanese for some reason, hung in the windows on either side of the front door. Everything was boarded up, and if it weren’t for my powers I wouldn’t have been able to pick out the trickle of light that came from inside, even if I had been standing right in front of the store.  
  
The cloud around me grew agitated, buzzing loudly. It was a tense buzz, but not a ‘spring the trap’ buzz. At least, I thought so.  
  
As worried as I was for losing too much of myself, it wasn’t hard to do the math. Five ABB and two saved lives was worth one Ridley losing a few pounds. It wasn’t like it really mattered anyway, I would never be in danger ever again.  
  
Faint shouts, and just two shrieks, came out from the shop. Skitter’s swarm did a sort of pulsing buzz, then flew away to join the rest of the harassment force. Three of the supposed five gangsters came barging through the front door, angry bugs hot on their heels. I took a moment to appreciate their sheer terror, before humming my two orbs at them.  
  
“Stick around, fellas!” I shouted.  
  
They barely had time to look at me before impact. And it was a  _glorious_ sight.  
  
Two of the ABB were hit straight on, oil splattering all over them, the storefront, and the ground. The third had a fleeting look of shock in his eyes, right before black tendrils reached out from the mass covering his friends, latched on, and  _dragged_ him backwards, kicking and screaming.  
  
I stared wordlessly at the new modern art gallery now splattered all over the place.  
  
There was no time to think about it, however. I started walking over to the restrained thugs the moment the grasping goop settled, but no sooner than I crossed the street than a small, crying asian woman fled out the front door. I called after her, but whether she heard me or not didn’t matter. A cloud of bugs followed her out and gathered in front of me and shaped themselves into an arrow, then an exclamation point. The message was clear.  
  
The door was wide open, allowing me inside without issue. There was nothing besides a few dusty, heavily worn wooden tables inside, at least at first glance. Far in the back, the light source I had barely seen from outside flickered dimly from behind a closed door. There was angry shouting too, overlaying the whimpering of what must have been the other hostage. I couldn’t understand it, though, it was in a completely foreign language.  
  
As I came up to the door, I went to turn the knob. It was pure habit, what I had done for my entire life. But then I remembered that I didn’t  _have_ to do that anymore. And it would be better if there was just that one more obstacle between the ABB and freedom. I flowed under the door and reformed inside the room, taking a moment to read the situation.  
  
Everything  _stopped_.  
  
The room had been used for storage, at one point. Racks filled with boxes were stacked up to the roof, and the entire room had that sort of bad, always-unreliable lighting that only storerooms seemed to have.  
  
Two ABB were in the room. One was slumped in the far corner, covered in bugs that were all frozen in motion. The other was standing over the second woman, shouting at the swarm of bugs as he held a needle to her neck. There were many like it on a small table next to the chair the woman sat in.  
  
It was obviously some kind of torture room. Or maybe forcible addiction. I didn’t really care about that, the poor girl shaking in the grip of a gangbanger was much more important.  
  
All of this I saw in no more than ten seconds. But nothing moved in that time. Nothing made so much as a squeak. That perfect calm, that stillness, lasted until I brought my hand up and took aim at the ABB, whose yelling reached my ears like a video resuming from pause.  
  
I didn’t so much shoot him with a sticky ‘nade, so much as it  _ejected_ from my arm. My entire hand swelled up like a balloon, then launched the projectile with a loud  _snap_.  
  
He didn’t even know I was present until his head was encased in, thankfully scream-muffling, goop.  
  
The woman let out a single scream as her captor fell over, clutching at the black mass on his head. She whirled about, trying to see where the attack had come from, until she saw me standing in the closed doorway.  
  
Not sure of what to do, I lifted a hand and gave her a small wave. She shrank down in her chair, but it was better than I expected, to be honest.  
  
Skitter’s swarm left the thug on the floor, flying out under the door, through a vent which I only just noticed, and some other cracks and spaces that were always present in rooms like these. That left me alone with the former-hostage, at least until Skitter herself came in.  
  
I held both my hands up as I approached her, moving slowly so as not to scare her. “Speak english?” I asked.  
  
“S… small b-bit,” she said, half-whimpering.  
  
I smiled to myself. “A  _little_ bit,” I corrected her, moving around her chair so she could still speak to me without having to crane her neck. She only nodded in response, so I tried to coax some more out of her.  
  
“What is your name?” I asked softly. When she didn’t say anything right away, I repeated myself, slower this time. “Name. Your name.”  
  
“L… Lanfen,” she said.  
  
“Lanfen,” I repeated. “Are you well, Lanfen?”  
  
She muttered something I couldn’t make out. “Again?” I brought a hand up to my ear.  
  
“Please…” she whispered. “No tell…  _Lung-dono_.”  
  
“Do not tell,” I said firmly. Lanfen flinched just a bit this time. “And do not worry. I will not tell him.”  
  
Lanfen said nothing else, staring at the floor. Sympathy struck me. Here was an obvious immigrant, under the thumb of a cruel parahuman, who looked to rule the city with an iron fist. She could do nothing to oppose him. For Pete’s sake, she couldn’t even speak correctly.  
  
If this wasn’t the kind of person that needed saving by heroes, then who was?  
  
Skitter chose that moment of epiphany to enter the room. Completely mundanely, of course.  
  
“Birdie,” she said. I did my best not to strangle her where she stood. “Police are on the way. We should be going.”  
  
“Shouldn’t we stay?” I looked at the sniffling woman in the chair. “You can’t honestly believe that leaving her alone here is a good idea.”  
  
“It’s not,” Skitter agreed, “but I’m… I don’t want this to be how we’re seen. This was something we  _had_ to do, not that we wanted to.”  
  
She looked over her shoulder. “And they can take it from here. I think your… you… knocked the guys in front out cold.”  
  
“Really?” I asked. “They were pretty lively when I went by them.”  
  
“They’re out of it,” Skitter assured me. “Can you just grab your stuff off them before we leave? We still don’t know if leaving it affects you, and I don’t want to find out tonight.”  
  
“Alright,” I conceded. “Let’s skedaddle.”  
  
A simple touch was all that was needed to reabsorb the ABB's newest accessory. We left Lanfen alone without another word, there was no time to waste.  
  
I followed Skitter out front where, sure enough, the three gangsters that I had caught with my grenades had fallen unconscious. But there was something else that stuck out, something that I only saw when I went to touch the whole web-like mass.  
  
There, right in the center, was a tiny eye.  
  
I stopped my finger barely an inch from the one feature on the entire mess. The eye and I stared at one another, neither of us blinking. Then the eye vanished, and I wondered if I hadn’t just been tricked horribly by the light.  
  
“Something the matter?” Skitter asked.  
  
“No,” I muttered. “Just my eyes playing tricks on me.”  
  
“Well hurry up, then.”  
  
I shook my head and tapped the oily blob, pulling most of it back to myself. As it receded, I pulled the three ABB thugs together, and left just enough material to form a large set of bindings that linked all of their torsos together.  _Boom. Gift-wrapped gangsters._  
  
“Nice,” Skitter commented. “Now let’s get out of here.”  
  
Not a moment too soon, either. The sirens wailing in the air might have reached us, but we were long gone before the police themselves so much as pulled onto the street.

***

_March 7, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
10:48 AM_

_Taylor_

“... and now that housekeeping’s out of the way,” Mr. Gladly said, “we can get to the fun stuff.”  
  
People started muttering as he strolled behind his desk and started writing on the blackboard. In my head I was already preparing for yet another group project, but some part of me still held out hope. Hope that for once, ‘Mr. G’ wouldn’t play crowd favorite, and actually make everyone do their own work.  
  
Mr. Gladly stepped off to the side, letting the class see what he had written. ‘Parahumans and History’.  _Oh thank god_ , I thought,  _it’s just a new unit._  
  
The rest of the class had mixed reactions. Some were groaning, but most were excited. Who wouldn’t be, having the chance to talk about capes for an entire month?  
  
Me and Ridley, that’s who.  
  
I gave a glance towards the back of the class. He gave me an over-dramatic eye roll, mirroring my internal thoughts perfectly. Dad always said it was the little things in life that mattered, and now having someone to share my pain with, I agreed.  
  
“We’re going to spice things up a bit,” Mr. Gladly said. “This whole unit is going to be one month-long project. Today we’re going over the project and assigning groups-”  _GOD DAMMIT_ “-and tomorrow we’ll start from the top.”  
  
I felt bad for the one guy sitting in the back corner who got to hear the chord of irritation pass from me to my singers, but not enough to keep me from venting. Was it really venting though, if it just bounced back to me?  
  
I instantly regretted focusing on my anger. From just that little slip, it started to boil up like a pressure cooker. My orchestra was the fire, and I was the water, working together to push me over the top. It took a few seconds for me to silence the many voices chittering in my head, and stop them from aggravating me further.  
  
“-esides, Mr. G, we can do the work of five people.” Ridley’s voice drifted into focus from the next seat over. I blinked and looked up at Mr. Gladly, giving him the best smile I could manage. It wasn’t convincing at all, I was sure.  
  
“Look, Ridley, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here,” he said, giving me a polite smile back. He then leaned down next to him, whispering softly enough that he thought only Ridley could hear him. “White knight’s pretty cliche though. Someone’s gotta teach you a lesson about subtlety.”  
  
A vein pulsed in Ridley’s neck. I couldn’t help but stare for a moment, it was something I had only ever seen happen to my Dad. Somewhere in the peanut gallery, I heard an invalid croak of rage.  
  
“Well, if you think you can do it,” Mr. Gladly continued, speaking normally now, “then I don’t see why not. Keep in mind you'll be graded the same as if you had a full group. I wish you two the best of luck.”  
  
With one last smile, he left us to go talk to another group. All of which had apparently formed in the four seconds I had been out of it.  
  
I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or disappointed.  
  
Ridley puffed up his cheeks and let out a long, dramatic breath. “Taylor, do me a favor.”  
  
“What is it?” I asked.  
  
“Don’t call me Birdie.”  
  
I was honestly interested by this point. “Why no-”  
  
“We don’t speak of it."  
  
“What are you talking-”  
  
“ _We don’t fucking speak of it._ ”  
  
I was totally lost by this point. So instead of trying to decipher the mystery of Ridley any further, I just sighed and took out my notebook, ready for whatever crap Gladly was going to throw our way.

***

_Brockton Bay General Hospital  
4:04 PM_  
  
I rode the elevator to the second floor. Left, right, left, right, straight through two intersections, and my destination was on my left.  
  
Room 31B.  
  
Mom was alone, as always. But she wouldn’t be for long.  
  
I looked up at Dad, beside me. His face was locked in a painful grimace as he stared into the room from the hallway. He didn’t so much as notice when I approached, but that wasn’t surprising.  
  
I waited a few moments to see if he eventually would, but no response was forthcoming. I sighed to myself, and tapped him on the shoulder. He almost jumped out of his skin, and through the roof.  
  
“Taylor,” he said, panting softly. Of course, he immediately tried to play it off. “Sorry. Just… waiting for you.”  
  
“Thanks,” I said, smiling. I knew he was lying , of course. I could smell the lies, like a off-key chord in a studio of puss. But no matter how that turned my stomach, I stepped into the room with him.  
  
I wasn’t here for him, after all. I was here for Mom.  
  
“Hey, honey,” he said, his voice wavering.  
  
“Hey, Mom,” I said, mine loud and clear.  
  
Dad crept over to the other side of the bed, taking the only seat present in the room. That left me to sit on her bed, which meant dropping the full bag I had brought with me with a heavy  _thump_.  
  
Silence in the room was only broken by the rhythmic beeping of the heart and breath monitors. Neither I nor Dad said anything else, not for a long time. I did my best not to stare at him, waiting for him to start talking, but I didn’t manage it. Turning my own two eyes was easy enough, but the legion observing at him was another issue entirely.  
  
He did, eventually, speak up. He started talking about work, how things with the Docks were going. How the other workers were doing, what he thought the mayor would say to his newest proposal for the Boat Graveyard, and things like that.  
  
His voice was nervous at first, but as he kept talking, he opened up more and more until I was starting to pick up something other than ‘exhaustion’ or ‘apathy’ in his words. But by that point, my focus was a million miles away.  
  
I heard every word and sentence my dad said, but at the same time I was watching people enter and leave the hospital through the eyes of some singers in the emergency room. It was harder than normal to tell people apart thanks to the constant air of sickness that the entire building wallowed in, but I was trying my best regardless. At the same time as I was listening and sensing out other people, I had a second set of bugs crawling around the floor. This one was kind of pointless, just seeing how much I could split my attention. And to my surprise, it was nearly effortless.  
  
I was beginning to get used to it, but only just. My powers felt as natural as breathing to me, but they still had a sense of newness that hadn’t faded. To continue that simile, it was like realizing you could hold your breath and actually stop yourself breathing. Just the sole thought of that being a  _thing_ that you could do.  
  
There was no good way to describe it. But that was the closest I had come, and the closest I would probably ever get.  
  
“... and Taylor’s made a new friend,” Dad said, smiling faintly at me. When he paused for an extra few seconds after that, I turned around to look at him. He gestured to me, before saying, “Go on, kiddo. Tell her.”  
  
I blinked, searching for words. I hadn’t been prepared to talk about anything today, really. I was just here to get my father to come. But I would never pass up the chance to talk with Mom. It wasn’t something I did often enough.  
  
“His… his name’s Ridley,” I told her. “Ridley… Steiner, I think.”  
  
Dad chuckled. “For shame, Taylor. Two months and you can’t even remember his full name. You two have been practically joined at the hip.”  
  
Another blink.  _Has it really been two months already_ , I wondered? It felt like just last week that we met. So much happened in that time-  
  
“That reminds me,” Dad interrupted my thoughts. “I get that the sleepovers stopped, it’s a high school thing. But I’d have thought Emma would stop by at least once in awhile.”  
  
I did my best not to choke right then and there.  
  
“Emma’s busy,” I lied, almost effortlessly. But I couldn’t look my dad in the eye as I said it. “Her… modeling career. It’s almost all the time now.”  
  
“Ah,” he said, flatly. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to drift apart from someone like that.”  
  
 _Then why are you not doing anything?_

***

_March 9, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
11:46 PM_  
  
The phrase ‘night and day’ came to mind when describing the Boardwalk after 9PM. Most of the shops didn’t officially close until ten, but the people would be cleared out long before then. It was just the nature of things; nobody wanted to be getting home at eleven at night on a workday.  
  
For us, however, it was the perfect meeting point. Highly recognizable, lots of open spaces, and close proximity to the Docks meant it was the place to be for two new heroes starting their careers. It was all the more important that we get started without a hitch, because tonight was  _the_ night.  
  
The night we made our proper debut.  
  
Some of the lights overhanging storefronts remained on through the entire night. It was one of those stores, a clothing shop that charged way more than I would ever be able to afford, that I stood in front of, examining myself in costume for the first time.  
  
My little singers had done good work. The silvery-gray spidersilk bodysuit I wore had taken some reweaving, but in the end I was confident the extra layers of silk would be worth it. The whole thing was extremely warm to wear, thanks to a total of a quarter inch of material. It was thinner around my joints by necessity, but no more than I thought I could get away with.  
  
The worst and best additions, though, were undoubtedly the plates. They were made from bug shells and carcasses, harvested from a month’s worth of insects. It was actually a by-product of feeding my spiders, until I realized I could just feed various bugs and kick-start their reproductive drive to give me both an endless food supply for the weavers, and get material for some real protection.  
  
That my orchestra grew with the leftovers was just icing on the cake.  
  
Unlike the silk, though, I had no idea if the plates would work out. There was next to zero research I could find on how strong exoskeletons were, and I hadn’t had the chance to properly test it the plates myself. But if all went well tonight, I wouldn’t need them.  
  
My mask was the piece I was most proud of, though. The base of it was silk, just like the rest of my outfit. But as opposed to several large plates of carapace that were on my chest, back, arms and legs, the mask had about eight small sections that fit over both the silk, and two clear lenses I had taken from my spare set of glasses. Right now it was just for protection, but later on I had some ideas for adding to the bug theme.  
  
All in all, as I looked myself over, I gave off the impression of being ready for a fight. Which I wasn’t, strictly speaking, but before the night was out I expected there to be a chance for one.  
  
A whistle of admiration came from on high. High above me, actually, where Ridley was standing with his arms folded across his chest. It was almost impossible to get a read on him with my bugs, but considering how fast he had arrived and the superhuman feats he performed to get up on top of the store, I was just a bit surprised he wasn’t even slightly short of breath.  
  
“An exquisite new look, Shadow Stalker,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Would such a fine lady such as yourself require an escort from an upstanding citizen?”  
  
I rolled my eyes. “I’d be honored. Do you know any?”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
He stepped off the roof and dropped to the ground, his whole body rippling as he bounced next to me. Sure enough, his eyes were distorted just enough to inform me of the grin his normal self would be sporting. “Ready to rock n’ roll?”  
  
“Yes,” I answered curtly. “Let’s go.”

***

Whenever we went for our morning runs, I was always the one up front. It had started as me simply being in better shape than my partner, but after all these weeks of training we had more or less evened out. Now it was just tradition, of a sort.  
  
It did make a certain sort of sense for our cape outings though. While it was practically impossible for us to be ambushed with my bugs singing around every nook, cranny and corner, there was something about having a (supposedly) invincible teammate at your back that I was grateful for.  
  
Now was an exception, however.  
  
Ridley had sidled up next to me as we walked. I caught him looking at me every once in awhile, but he always glanced away whenever he thought I was on to him. It got tiresome after a while, and so I just asked him what was the matter.  
  
“You tell me,” he said lowly. “You haven’t said much the past couple days.” When I shrugged noncommittally, he continued. “I mean, you usually at least  _listen_ to me at lunch. Am I turning into Greg, now?”  
  
I sighed. “No, you’re not. I just…”  
  
It took me about half a mile of brisk walking to get my thoughts in order. He was patient.  
  
“My… my Mom’s in the hospital,” I told him. “She has been for years. I went to go see her Monday.”  
  
He was quiet, but not for as long as I had been. “Fuck.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Just you?”  
  
“Me and Dad. This time.”  
  
The metaphorical smoke could be smelt, even if I wasn’t sure he had the flesh and blood to burn at the moment. “I know it’s hard,” he started, “but you’ve gotta-”  
  
I corrected him before he could make the mistake. “It’s Dad that doesn’t go.”  
  
“...Oh.” He stared ahead.  
  
“Yeah.” I did the same.  
  
“Well.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
He looked off to the side. The smoke intensified. Then he said something I never would have expected.  
  
“Let’s all go Saturday.”  
  
I stopped in my tracks, as did he. I did my best to glare at him through my mask, though if he could recognize it I had no idea. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” I asked him. “Do you know what it’s like, going in there and seeing my mom just… just…”  
  
“No, I don’t,” he acknowledged. “But let me ask you a question. Would it hurt more to go and see her twice in a week, or to never see her again?”  
  
That cut any argument I might’ve had brewing off at the knees. I didn’t have anything to say back, so I just swallowed and looked down. Ridley put his hand on my shoulder.  
  
“Skitter,” he said. I was thankful he had the presence of mind to keep to my cape name. “Your family still loves each other, so keep that love alive. Some of us aren’t so lucky.”  
  
I knew what he saying. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to make me feel better. But it didn’t work. Nothing he could say could help.  
  
With this? Nothing ever did.

***

_12:27 AM  
  
Maybe this will_, I thought despondently.  
  
‘This’ was a shipping pier currently empty of any freighters, but with plenty of small speedboats. That, and enough drugs in laughably bad containers that I was wondering if my singers wouldn’t get stoned just from a flyby. There were about two-dozen people milling about, trading product and cash that all stunk of illegal goods.  
  
It was, at once, both exactly what I wanted and precisely what I didn’t.  
  
It was too late to turn back, however. Ridley had already caught on to whatever motions I made when I noticed trouble.  
  
“Got something?” he asked.  
  
I pointed in the vague direction of the Merchants. “Edge of the docks. Lots of people, lots of drugs.”  
  
He hummed for a moment. “Merchants, then. They don’t have a lot of capes, it could be easy pickings.”  
  
“Still,” I said. “Two dozen.”  
  
“Enough to be a problem, but not so many that we’re outmatched.”  
  
That was basically what I was thinking. “Are we going for this?” I asked.  
  
Ridley gave a slight shrug. “You’re the boss, it’s up to you. I can’t say that I like passing up the chance to bash some druggie heads together, but if you make the call, we move on.”  
  
I thought for a moment.  
  
“Did you weigh yourself after last time?” I asked.  
  
He nodded. “Yeah, I forgot to tell you. No lost weight. I can go wild with the goop-nades if you want me to.”  
  
I tilted my head. “‘Goop-nades’? Really”  
  
“Hey, if you’ve got a better idea, I’m all for it. It’s the best I could come up with.”  
  
“What about sticky grenades?”  
  
“Because there’s already a grenade with that name, and I don’t want anything to do with the Sentient.”  
  
That was actually a very good reason not to use that name. Probably the best reason ever, actually. If Ness’ South American dictatorship was involved with anything, it was best if you stayed at least a continent away.  
  
Hooray for internet searches.  
  
“Goopnades it is, then,” I nodded. “Come on.”

***

_Ridley_

Maybe once these abandoned Dock would have held plenty of shipping containers, stacks as high as an office building. Nearly all of them were gone now, and the few that remained were empty and rusted beyond safe use. Skitter and I were camping inside one such container, about a hundred yards from the pier the Merchants had used to ship their product.  
  
By the time we got into position some of the Merchants had gotten away on their speedboats. Skitter was about as happy as I was, missing out on those extra collars and cash. It was a net positive, though, as it meant going down from over twenty people to a more manageable fifteen. Still a lot, but better than before.  
  
All that was left to was wait until the gangers came close enough that I could get a good shot at them. The idea was for Taylor to drop a cloud of bugs on them, and then I would fire off a couple goopnades to immobilize the lot. Simple blitzkrieg tactics.  
  
As we waited, I mentally went over my newest trick, one more time. It was a pretty simple thing I had been practicing at home, and I wasn’t sure if it would work in the field. But it was worth a shot, just for ‘cool’ factor.  
  
“On my mark,” Skitter muttered.  
  
If I had been my normal self, I would have been shaking with excitement.  
  
“Go.”  
  
The sounds of a plague of insects filled the air as her little minions descended on the actual blight on Brockton Bay. Their yelps, shrieks and screams echoed out to us, which was actually kind of disturbing. I didn’t let it distract me, however, as I took aim at the suddenly panicking group of idiots that dared to sell drugs in my city.  
  
Globs of sticky oil rapid-fired from my outstretched hands. They sailed into the crowd of Merchants, clinging to whatever they hit: arms, legs, the ground, the cart their drugs were on. As soon as they touched down, each one shot out little inky tendrils, grabbing onto anything they could. Each one didn’t have much force behind it, maybe like a few rubber bands tied together. But as the number added up, so too did the collective force.  
  
Then end result was a lump of struggling, cursing, and panicking thugs, drugs, and oil. Like a giant black scab on the concrete, if scabs writhed and squirmed.  
  
“Wow,” Skitter said. “That was…”  
  
“Easy?” I offered. I took her silence to mean she was thinking the same.  
  
“I’ll call it in,” she said, turning to leave. But before she did, I grabbed her shoulder.  
  
“Wait,” I said. “I wanna show you something.”  
  
She gave me a puzzled look, but turned back and stood beside me. “What is it?”  
  
She couldn’t see them, but I could. Little lines, strings almost, that stretched from the Merchant scab back to me. Strings that moved when I held up my hand, that gathered in my palm without me having to actually grab them. And with a yanking motion, they moved.  
  
The glob of goop and gangbangers flopped over once lazily. I looked over at Skitter, eager to see her reaction.  
  
“...” She stared straight ahead.  
  
“Well?” I asked. “Cool, right?”  
  
She shook her head. “I didn’t see anything.”  
  
I frowned to myself. It must have been too dark for her to see, but she should have been able to tell with her bugs. I grabbed the strings and pulled again, this time hard.  
  
The scab of Merchants moved again, this time rolling over about thirty feet to the right. Skitter also chose that moment to jump on me.  
  
I wasn’t trying to keep myself soft, so I might as well have been flesh as we fell to the ground, tangling ourselves up. She was flailing around for some reason, and I was flailing because she was flailing, and everybody was flailing in one way or another and I got really tired of the flailing.  
  
“What was that!?” We both yelled.  
  
“Why did you do that?” I asked as I melted down and reformed standing up. Skitter made a noise as she rolled over and pushed herself to her feet, looking around herself like she was lost or something.  
  
“Me?” she asked. “What did you do?”  
  
I pointed to our captures. “See? I moved them.”  
  
She stared at them, rubbing her arm. “...wow. Yeah, you did.”  
  
I smiled and folded my arms. “Pretty cool, huh? A little shoot n’ scoot?”  
  
Skitter just shook her head and started walking away. “I’ll be back,” she said, leaving me alone with the Merchants.  
  
I figured I had a few minutes while she went looking for a phone, and then a few more before the police actually got here. And in that time, I wanted to get a few answers from the crowd before me.  
  
I strolled up the the squirming ball of people, looking it over for someone who seemed likely to talk. Walking around to the other side led to me discovering one Merchant who wasn’t struggling, just staying still with his head bowed. I walked up to him and snapped my fingers in front of his face.  
  
“Hello there, sunshine,” I said. “What’s your name?”  
  
“Get bent,” he muttered.  
  
“Bender it is.” I folded my arms and started remembering the list of questions I had written down. “Who’s your boss, Bender?”  
  
“Skidmark.”  
  
“Not him you moron,” I growled. “Next in the chain of command. His name, where he lives, who works for him. Tell me.”  
  
Bender spat on the ground. “I ain’t telling you. Em’s don’t squeal.”  
  
I grinned.

***

_Taylor_

From the amount of fear I sensed from the Merchants, I was almost afraid I was going to come back to Ridley carving them up. The lack of blood was the only reason I wasn’t. Still, it kept me on edge the entire time I was gone, something I was repeatedly asked about by the operator.  
  
I just said we had ‘lively captives’.  
  
It was a minor relief that when I returned, everything was more or less the same as I had left it. The sole exception was Ridley sitting on top of our pile of gang members, looked as bored as was possible for an ink-person. He perked up slightly as I approached.  
  
“Police should be here soon,” I called up to him. “Might want to meet them when they get here, make sure they get the right impression.”  
  
“Good idea,” he said, jumping off the pile. More than a few whimpers and groans followed as he did.  
  
Now was the moment of truth. “What are you going to call yourself?”  
  
He shrugged. “Still don’t know. Would it be so bad to let the PR team handle that?”  
  
I didn’t say a word. I just let that thought stew with him for a minute.  
  
“... on second thought,” he muttered. “Yeah. Okay. I got one.”  
  
“Well?”  
  
He looked over his shoulder at the captured thugs, then back to me. His eyes crinkled up in that ‘I’m smiling’ way, as he swept his arm across his chest, bowing deeply.  
  
“Scourge, at your service.”


	15. Interlude 2.X: Various

_January 4th 2011  
Brockton Bay  
6:19 AM_

_Sophia_

Sophia Hess was not a girl who enjoyed being told what to do.  
  
That, in part, had been the reason she had started her cape career as a vigilante, instead of applying straight to the Wards. She worked better flying solo, where she didn’t have anyone barking orders in her ear, any ‘partner’ holding her back, and didn’t have to deal with the  _bullshit_ that was other teenagers.  
  
But one takedown too many, just one artery nicked by her crossbow, had brought that all crashing down on her. The Protectorate had swooped in faster than she thought possible, rounded her up, and had been on the verge of hauling her off to juvie.  
  
Of  _course_ Sophia took the deal they offered. A choice between prison and probation was no choice at all.  
  
So she dealt with Console, whoever it might be at the time. She dealt with the drama from the other Wards, be it Chris’ tinker-whining or Missy’s sheer brattiness. But the thing that grated most on Sophia’s nerves? The one thing that put her on the ledge of just into PRT HQ loaded for bear with lethal bolts?  
  
Director Emily  _fucking_ Piggot.  
  
Yes, Sophia respected her. Her ability to boot Sophia from Protectorate Ward to Correctional Ward, more specifically.  
  
Yes, Sophia knew she was a survivor. Only two people crawled out of Ellisburg alive, and they were both crippled for life.  
  
Yes, Sophia envied her. How she had whole squads of trained and armed PRT troopers bowing and scraping to her every time she wheeled herself into the building.  
  
But Sophia didn’t like her. In her mind, Piggot was the keyholder to her freedom. It was only the containment foam pointed at her 24/7 that kept the young Ward from redefining the meaning of ‘smash and grab’.  
  
It was that same threat that forced Sophia to get up at the crack-ass of dawn, dress up as Shadow Stalker, and have her father take her downtown to HQ.  _For what reason_ , Sophia wondered as she rode the elevator up to the Director’s office,  _who the fuck knows_.  
  
Piggot’s office was most easily accessed by two elevators located in the main foyer of PRT HQ. It wasn’t uncommon for Wards to be called up, but Sophia never liked having to stroll through one of the most visible spaces in the building when it happened. Oh sure, she liked the awed looks she got from regular people, but those who worked here never batted an eye.  
  
She always thought they were judging her, in some way. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, who cared?  
  
Sophia stepped out onto the fourth floor the moment the doors dinged open. The Director’s office was only a short walk away, and the only stop was to have the secretary let her in. She did her best not to sneer from behind her mask, as Piggot seemed to have a sixth sense for that sort of thing.  
  
‘The Office of the Director of the Parahuman Response Team: East North-East’. It was probably the fanciest name ever for mid-sized official’s workspace, as well as one of the most expensive. And despite that, Piggot hardly had any decorations for the space. Oh sure, the desk was nice, probably oak or something, and there were a few bookcases that had the same meaningless contents all of these offices did, but to Sophia there was just one word for it all.  
  
 _Hell_.  
  
“Miss Hess,” greeted the Devil.  
  
“Director,” she responded.  
  
Sophia took her seat opposite ‘The Pig’, drinking in the sight of an exhausted director. Three hundred pounds of tactless, pitiable, legless bluster. Piggot was anything but respectable, and just how she had managed to get where she was remained a mystery.  
  
Piggot glanced at something on her computer, a fancy tinkertech thing that practically every government employee had these days. She cleared her throat before returning her attention to her Ward, hands folded on top of the desk.  
  
“You know why you’re here.” It was not a question.  
  
Sophia honestly didn’t, and said as much. It turned that was not the correct answer, for the Director’s face scrunched up in a heavy frown as she leaned forward.  
  
“Late last night, there was a call to the police,” Piggot informed her. “Two high school students, from  _your_ school, were trapped in the building. One of them was removed from what was practically a toxic dump.”  
  
There was a flicker of recognition in Sophia’s head, and just the slightest bit of trepidation. “I remember seeing something like that,” she admitted. “But so did three dozen other people.”  
  
Piggot tilted her head. “Miss Hess, do you know what a biohazard is?”  
  
“Blood. Vomit. Bodily fluids.”  
  
“An incomplete definition, but workable,” Piggot agreed. She reclined in her wheelchair, or at least as much as her bulk would allow. “When the police arrived, they had to extricate one of the children from a locker filled with enough trash, filth, and material to qualify as a  _biohazard_. Possibly even a  _bioweapon_.”  
  
Sophia was quite glad for her mask in that moment; it prevented the Director from seeing the blood drain from her face.  
  
“Now, it is completely possible that you didn’t see the insides of that locker,” Piggot continued. “Three dozen people, well, that’s more than enough to block sight.  
  
“But from the reports I have here,” she motioned to her computer, “there was no way you could have avoided the  _smell_. Is that fair to say?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess,” Sophia acknowledged. “The whole second floor stank.”  
  
The Pig made a noise. “Am I understanding this right, then? You, Sophia Hess, secretly the Ward Shadow Stalker, were present and aware of two of your peers being shoved placed in a dangerous, potentially lethal situation? A situation involving a  _bioweapon container_?"  
  
There was a pause. “And yet, you did nothing?”  
  
“There were gangs present,” Sophia blurted. “They were flying colors, nobody in their right mind would step up.”  
  
“And yet that is precisely your  _job_ ,” Piggot snapped. “To help people and save lives. Or are you just that scared?”  
  
“I’m not fucking  _scared_ ,” Sophia growled. “ _Ma’am_.”  
  
“No, apparently you’re not. If you were, one of the victims wouldn’t have named you as the one who shoved them in those lockers.”  
  
Sophia stiffened.  
  
The Director leaned forward again. “Do you have anything you wish to tell me, Miss Hess?”  
  
“... I-”  
  
She was cut off immediately. “This ends one of three ways, Sophia. You are either found guilty, in which, best case, case you will be sent back to juvenile detention until you turn eighteen. Worst case, you are tried as an adult for attempted double homicide. In either case, the Wards ‘mysteriously’ lose Shadow Stalker, and she is never heard from again. You are not allowed to choose this option.  
  
“The second option is that you withdraw from Winslow, and are confined to Console duty for the rest of your probation. The exception to this are HK appearances and, god forbid, anything the PR team cooks up.  
  
“Or,” Piggot drawled, “or.”  
  
Sophia swallowed. Her throat felt very dry all of a sudden, and those foam sprayers in the ceiling suddenly looked much more menacing.  
  
Piggot’s finger went and tapped a few times on an unseen keyboard. There were a few beeps that sounded off, a clicking noise from somewhere in the ceiling, and finally a  _thunk_ from the windows.  
  
Piggot laced her fingers together and stared calmly at the young girl before her. “You take my way out. You’re no longer a Ward, Sophia Hess. You are now  _my_ Ward. Your orders will come directly from me. When I say ‘jump’, you will jump exactly as high as I want. When I say ‘spit in Armsmaster’s face’, you will spit, even if Behemoth itself has scorched you to the  _bone_.”  
  
Sophia became distinctly aware that she was no longer dealing with The Pig. This was not the woman who wheeled into work every day with a scowl on her face, and a chip on her shoulder. This was the woman who had literally dragged herself out of Ellisburg, acids eating at her legs even as the screams ate at her mind.  
  
This was a  _true_ survivor.  
  
“You’re mine, now,” Emily told her. “And if you even squeak about our arrangement, I promise you that Dragon herself will drag you off to the Birdcage.”  
  
There was no need for confirmation. The single finger pointing at the door was all that was required. And for the first time in her life, Sophia left with a feeling she had never known before.  
  
 _Reverence_.

***

“Denice.”  
  
“Yes, director?”  
  
“An order for Tom from that chinese place he likes. Tell him it’s on me.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“And throw in some sweets. He did well today.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”

***

_February 27th, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
10:17 AM_

_Elizabeth_

Elizabeth was not a woman who enjoyed being lied to.  
  
She did not  _tolerate_ being lied to. Not by the police, not by her ex, and certainly not by her own children. And yet, lie they all did, straight to her face no less. Well, not the second one, as she had only been lied to over the phone, but her point still stood!  
  
Her son lying was perhaps not the most important, all things told, but it was the thing that weighed most heavily on her mind. It was not too long ago that she was a teenager herself, so she knew better than he thought what was going through his own head. That felt worse than anything else, because she understood that he did not  _trust_ her enough to tell the truth.  
  
But he was at ‘that age’, as she kept reminding herself. There was nothing for it, nothing but time. Perhaps one day he would realize how he was hurting her, and apologize for it.  
  
No, the most important thing right now was the complete failure of the BBPD. Her son, her  _only_ son, had been assaulted and locked in a his own school for hours on end! She might not have been surprised if a case involving only one person wasn’t at the the top of the police’s priorities, but there had been another girl, too. And from the way she understood things, that girl had been carted away in an ambulance.  
  
Elizabeth heaved a sigh and crossed off ‘Call the police’ off her to-do list. It had been there for a long time, but she had held off on it in hopes that, when she finally made the call, there would be something substantial. Asking a few friends had informed her that investigations could take a month or more to turn up something. But she had grown impatient, with the time edging closer to two months than one.  
  
And Elizabeth would be damned before someone pulled the wool over her eyes about her son.  
  
She wondered, absently, if perhaps she shouldn’t do some digging of her own. How to do that, she had no idea, but certainly she could do no worse than the so-called ‘professionals’ by this point. She had an associate’s degree, after all. There was nothing she couldn’t do if she put her mind to it.  
  
 _Except help your only son_ , her mind whispered treacherously. And to that, Elizabeth had no answer.  
  
It was time for a smoke, she decided. She grabbed her lighter and cigarettes out of the junk drawer, where they were always placed but perhaps wouldn’t belong for a while, if things continued the way they were headed.  
  
She was grateful that Ridley was out of the house, as it meant she wouldn’t have to deal with his annoying hacking and coughing. That was one thing she regretted about raising him; she hadn’t locked him in a room full of cigarette smoke until he manned up and stopped complaining, like her own parents had.  
  
Her daughter Katrina huffed as she walked in front of the TV, but knew better than to complain. Elizabeth always like that about her daughter, she knew when to keep quiet. Ridley really needed to learn that, especially if he was going to be spending so much time with that Taylor girl.  
  
Out on the tiny porch, Elizabeth shut the door behind her and immediately lit up a cigarette. She took a long, strong pull from the little white tube of tobacco, and let out an equal exhale after holding it for several seconds.  
  
One hand held her vice of choice. The other held her lighter, a piece that was best described as a relic. To be accurate, it was on old trench lighter from World War II, much easily older than Elizabeth herself. It had been her father’s, once, before he gifted it to her on her wedding day.  
  
The tarnished steel gave it a suitably venerable appearance, but all of the pieces were in remarkable condition. The cotton had been replaced just last month, but that and lighter fuel were about all she had ever done to keep it up.  
  
She had nearly cursed him out, then. Nobody who had been present knew why Elizabeth had sputtered and stammered for nearly a minute. Nobody who had been there knew why Elizabeth refused to allow anyone to see it.  
  
She flipped the lighter over. Stamped and fused to the steel casing, the crude yet distinct eyes of an eagle gazed balefully up at its owner. Its wings folded straight down to hold a penny-sized emblem. Few people in America knew what those letters actually stood for, but nearly everyone in the world knew what they were associated with. It was very simple, all things told.  
  
Two stylized ‘S’s.  
  
That was all that Elizabeth had ever needed to see about this thing to hate it.  
  
Truth be told, she had never given it much thought beyond blind, if impersonal, hatred. It had simply never mattered. Such a tiny thing, a lighter, and yet there was so much history that had finally clicked into place once she finally saw it for herself.  
  
Her uncle, who was in the ‘army’, she never saw.  
  
Her grandfather, a ‘politician’, dead before she was born.  
  
All young Elizabeth had known was that her family were immigrants from Germany. That was all that had mattered, when she decided to keep her maiden name upon marriage. She was proud, once, that her family was different. That the brand of hatred the world knew and eradicated had passed her kin over.  
  
How wrong she was, that stupid young Elizabeth.  
  
But as stupid as she had been, as bad as her family must have been, young Elizabeth Steiner had wanted for nothing. Sometimes she longed for a return to her childhood, when things were so much simpler. Before she had been a mother, before she had married that piece of shit, before she made all those terrible decisions as a teenager.  
  
But she wasn’t willing to give up her children for it. No, as much as they grated on her nerves sometimes, they were the best things Elizabeth had. Her two little babies, her bright little Ridley, and her proud little Katrina.  
  
The lighter had come with a note. ‘Keep your heritage alive’. She was sure she had done that. Her children had been raised to hold their heads high, and to work hard. To keep moving forward, no matter how hard it became.  
  
But… but.  
  
Another piece of that heritage glimmered from Elizabeth’s palm. One that represented everything that her family was not. Cowards, hatred, and the blood of  _millions_.  
  
There were those in the city that kept that part of her heritage alive for her. They thought themselves to be in the right, this ‘Empire Eighty-Eight.’ Elizabeth scoffed when she first heard of them, thinking they were just another neo-nazi group claiming the mistakes of the past as accomplishments to be lauded.  
  
And yet, for all their bluster, for all their faults, still they lived in a city with the Sunken Dragon. That spoke to some level of effectiveness, no matter how she wished otherwise.  
  
As she turned the lighter over, Elizabeth pondered.  
  
Her son, who isolated his mind as best he could from the world. Her daughter, whose pride now eclipsed her reason. Her life, once seeming so bright, now in shambles. What was the cause? Had it been her own mistakes? Those of her ex?  
  
Did it all stem from her failure to do as her father instructed?  
  
She pondered.  _What do I have to do to make things right?_  
  
The eagle did not answer. It only returned her stares, reminding her of days long past. And whether those days were better, and for whom, she did not know.

***

_August 20, 2005  
Walworth County, Wisconsin  
1:27 PM_

_Melissa_

_She had made a light.  
  
It was so beautiful, this light of hers. It shined so brightly, so magnificently. It danced on invisible strings, its skin flowing this way and that. Beneath that, inside of it, there was a true miracle. Light, and fire, and life.  
  
She could see it. Within the light danced the air, the clouds, and fire. It was so… so warm.  
  
It was her own light that Melissa had made, and nobody could take it away from her. Not her mother, not her father, not the judges, not the crowd and certainly NOT little Janice.  
  
Then she looked beyond the light, and suddenly it was not warm, it was hot. It burned not brightly, but cruelly.  
  
People were screaming.  
  
They were screaming.  
  
They were screaming, and they were running.  
  
They were running, and they were dying.  
  
The light BURNED-_

***

_April 5th, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
7:00 AM  
  
“-heat of the moment-”_  
  
Melissa was not a girl who enjoyed being woken up from recollections of her loved ones dying by entirely relevant music.  
  
She snapped to wakefulness the moment her alarm went off. With practiced ease, she slapped the ‘Snooze’ button on its top. And when it refused to comply with her demands, as most alarms did after spending three months with her, she simply scoffed and rolled out of her bed.  
  
 _“-of the moment, shone in your eyes-”_  
  
Seven o’clock may have been the time to get up, but seven fifteen would be the time to be ready. Not a moment was wasted as Melissa swung out of bed and slipped into what the hotel passed off as a bathroom.  
  
A closed door was sufficient to block out the old time tunes of Asia, which helped to block the urge she had to sing along.  _Maybe next month_ , she told herself, although she knew that it was unlikely that would be the case. Her newest client was going to keep her busy for some time. Or at least, that’s what six digits said.  
  
She flicked the shower knob on, tossed her clothes off, and prepared for a quick douse of frigid water. All water was icy cold to her, and things had been for years. All the same, she was used to waiting for the water to warm, and so she took the chance to look herself over in the small mirror over the sink.  
  
While only fifteen, and having a figure to match, Melissa carried herself with the air of someone thrice her age, and of a much more authoritative position. It was necessary, in her line of work. So too was the need to modify her appearance from time to time. Not her face, of course, she was much too attached to her natural features to have them worked on. But something as simple, as effective as her hair? That was easy.  
  
A mental note was made to pick up some dye later on. Her natural blonde hair was starting to show at her roots, standing in sharp contrast to the brunette falsification she had opted for. She also considered ordering another pair of blue contacts, but decided to put it to a coin flip later in the day. Her dirt-brown eyes would work well enough with the touch-up on her hair.  
  
And besides, her cape outfit made that all redundant. What was the worry about appearances when you died every time you went to work?  
  
She stepped into the shower, hardly shivering as the freezing water hit her skin. Goosebumps rose up all over her body, but she was beyond used to it by now. And as she did every time she bathed, she considered adding her ‘heater’. That thought was quickly thrown away when she considered the bill that melting an entire wing of the hotel would rack up.  
  
Anything smaller than a car just wasn’t  _enough_ , these days.  
  
Her bathing was quick and efficient, as always. Five minutes later, and she stepped out of both the shower, and the bathroom itself. No towel adorned her, she had no need of it.  
  
Melissa walked to the middle of the hotel room, hands by her side, her eyes closing. Deep breathing exercises, once used to calm nerves before a performance, now served to center her mind and body, in preparation for what came next. On her tenth breath, she drew her hands up slowly, and cupped her palms together.  
  
This was always the hardest part.  
  
Heat blossomed in her hands. It defied everything she had ever been taught, making something from nothing. But in defiance of her, admittedly incomplete, education, tiny flickers sparked between her palms. Like a flint on steel, they jumped and flew and faded, pulsing with her heartbeat. But soon, they began to multiply, feeding off one another and flickering between hot and cold, life and death.  
  
Heat became fire, fire became an inferno, the inferno became life...  
  
A star was born.  
  
It was no bigger than a marble, but Melissa could feel the warmth wash over her the same as if it was a hundred times bigger. The heat carried away all excess moisture from her skin, doing the job no towel could ever hope to. She reveled in her power now, as she did every time, fully aware of the treacherous little hooks that dug themselves into her heart with each pulse of her star.  
  
She opened her eyes and held aloft the miniature sun in a single hand. With her mind clear and empty, she watched as it lazily circled and danced between her fingers. Most people settled for coins or dice, but for Melissa there was no replacing her star. It was always so beautiful to behold…  
  
Then she let it settle in her palm, and crushed the life from it.  
  
She walked over to the closet and pulled the door open. Hanging lifeless upon a hanger was her death, a black and red bodysuit adorned with suns. High upon the top shelf, glinting down at her with gleeful evil, was her demise, a helmet and visor with the same motif. Her own hands were the undoing, taking the wretched things and placing them upon her body.  
  
Tinkertech fabrics, costly but not unaffordable, caressed her skin like an old lover. Or perhaps an old murderer, sometimes it was difficult to tell. Still, there was a feeling attached to this suit and helmet. A feeling of confidence. A feeling of strength. Everything that Melissa wasn’t.  
  
Moments later, Melissa died as the impenetrable black visor sealed over her eyes.  
  
Now, there was only Sundancer. A killer. A murderer. A mercenary.  
  
The time was precisely quarter past seven. Sundancer’s phone rang, loud and clear, and she picked it up before it could complete its first tone.  
  
“Sundancer,” she droned, a simple voice filter in her helmet flattening her voice and obscuring any hint of youth it might have carried.  
  
A voice wheezed from the other end. “You received it?”  
  
The ‘it’ in question was a small package. Received via dead drop, it was now neatly tucked under Sundancer’s bed. Inside there were merely two sheets of paper, one with instructions, and the other with her client’s number. “Yes.”  
  
“Payment is five-hundred. Dead by the end of next week.”  
  
“Consider it done,” Sundancer replied, then hung up.  
  
She paused for a moment.  
  
Then she sprang into motion, grabbing the box from underneath her bed, as well as several maps of varying sizes and details. There was only one line of instruction listed for her to follow, but to do so would require extensive planning. Luckily, a few searches at the local library had narrowed down the area she had to focus on.  
  
As she started marking territories and familiarizing herself with her new ‘home’ of Brockton Bay, Sundancer could only wonder exactly how she was to do the impossible.  
  
 _Kill Lung._


	16. Taint 3.1

_April 6, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
9:59 AM

_Taylor_

_"Anyone want to go first?" Gladly asked.  
  
Nobody raised their hands, obviously. He may been one of the most popular teachers in Winslow, but that didn't cancel out the desire every student had to avoid work whenever possible. That left everyone at the mercy of his whims, but whenever it came to situations like this, it was every man for himself.  
  
His eyes fell to back of the classroom, and he gestured with a wide smile. "Ridley. How about your group?"  
_  
Of course he picks us _, I thought. But the joke was on him, we were more than ready for this._  
  
Ridley stood up and clapped his hands, smiling right back at Gladly. "We'd be happy to, Mr. G."  
  
Mr. Gladly stepped off to the side of the classroom, leaving the front for us. I dug our verbal notes out of my backpack and went straight up, gazing out across my classmates. Most of them weren't even looking up, and the few that were had little smirks. They were expecting a total flop from us, from me. Well, they were about to be in for a surprise.  
  
Ridley came up to the front of the class, bearing a foldable poster-board. He set it down on Mr. Gladly's desk and leaned in close to me. "You ready?"  
  
"Yeah," I nodded, looking over the speech one more time. "Are you?"  
  
He grinned and popped the poster-board open.  
  
There was no epic artwork inside. No gallery-worthy collage, or painstaking photography. It was only a high schooler's World Issues presentation, after all. But there were no less than a dozen photos of villains from all over the globe, and every single one had both their name and a quick bio. It was hard to see, but underneath it all we had laid out a globe, and placed each villain on their home country. The US was a little over-represented, to be fair, but we had at least one from every continent.  
  
It wasn't going to get us any awards. But it had effort put into it, from both of us and from Ms. Steiner. If we didn't get an 'A', I'd eat my mask.  
  
I cleared my throat and began speaking.  
  
"What is a villain?"

***

_April 8, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
11:08 AM  
  
The lunch bell rang, and the classroom leapt into motion.  
  
“Hang on, hang on,” Mr. Gladly said, waving his hands in a ‘sit down’ motion. “Gimme one second guys.”  
  
Mr. Gladly reminded us about homework, that presentations weren’t over, good job to everyone so far, blah blah blah. The group that had been using their time to fawn over some rugged British hero was forced to stop until next time, muttering among themselves how unfair it was they didn't get to finish. It was all useless noise, so I tuned it out until I heard Mr. Gladly let us go.  
  
Ridley was at my side in an instant. “Gym entrance,” he reminded me. It was Friday, which meant that the jocks were taking our table over. No real reason for it, it was just the way things went.  
  
He and I walked out of class together, but about halfway to between there and the cafeteria I realized I had to use the bathroom. I excused myself and made a quick detour up to the third floor. The restroom up there was practically spotless, at least compared to the others in the school.

***

_"A villain is a scoundrel, a terrorist, a murderer," Ridley said from beside me. "A villain is Crawler, who fights and kills because he can."_  
  
"What is a villain?" I asked again, and again Ridley responded.  
  
"A villain is someone who is blamed for evil." He walked as he talked, gesturing with his hands. "A villain is Canary, who struck back against those who hurt her."  
  
A third time. "What is a villain?"  
  
"A villain is someone who opposes the hero. A villain is Tattletale, who does so for reasons we'll never know."

***

The hallways were busy at first, as classes were being let out. They tended to empty in just a few minutes, but as I was trying to go up while everyone else was headed down, it took me a while before I actually got to my destination.  
  
As soon as I finished squeezing through the crowds, I slipped inside a stall and let my backpack gently fall to the floor. No sooner than I did that, did someone knock on the door twice.  
  
“Occupied,” I called out. The person giggled quietly.  
  
I froze as the notes rang in my ears.  _Madison_.  
  
I sat down on the toilet, tense but patient. I was mentally preparing for some stunt to come, but nothing happened immediately. Madison just… left me alone.  _Did she not recognize my voice_ , I wondered?  _Have I finally gotten lucky?_  
  
There was no way I could relax until she was gone, whether or not she knew who I was. So I sat in the stall, waiting for her to leave, but she didn’t. She merely drew her phone, and started tapping away.  
  
There was no way she was going to try anything with just her here, but I was prepared in case she did. I stuck my hand into my pocket, feeling for three little ‘marbles’ Ridley had handed me yesterday. He promised me they would work, but suddenly faced with the possibility of using them, I wasn’t so confident.  
  
I stretched my conductor’s reach out, readying my muses to come at a moment’s notice.  _That_ gave me confidence, as did the flies I sent to rest on my partner’s shoulder.  
  
I started feeling Winslow inside out, looking for the other members of the Trio. Finding Sophia was easy, as there was always this strong pressure around her, and she turned out to be right down the hall. Locating Emma was harder. She wore perfumes that masked her, letting her hide among the crowds in school like a chameleon.  
  
A second later, my breath hitched as I realized that Sophia was  _also_ entering the bathroom.

***

_"These are all villains," I continued. I hardly had to glance at our notes; we had practiced this extensively. "But they were all people, once. Some still are, some refuse to be who they were before."_  
  
"We talk about villains all the time like they're the same," Ridley said, now pointing to the board. "But can you say that Moord Nag is the same as Virago?"  
  
"Or that the Yangban are the same as the Gesselschaft?"

***

I realized waiting Madison out was no longer an option. She knew it was me, and she was calling in backup. But even as I jumped to my feet, Sophia slammed against the stall door, holding it shut tight.  
  
“How’s it going, Hebert?” she asked. I could taste the malice on her breath,  _hot peppers on stale bread_.  
  
I threw myself against the door, to no avail. With just her shoulder, Sophia had me completely trapped. The choir started chanting as I was left brewing in the stall, no doubt waiting for Emma to come.  
  
The head bitch herself walked in just a few minutes later, and started talking with her comrades. I did my best to ignore them, and just kept looking around for a way out. I couldn’t climb over the walls, I didn’t have the arm strength. But  _under_ them…  
  
“Hey in there,” Emma called out sweetly. “How’s my  _best friend_  doing?”  
  
I didn’t dignify her with a response. Instead, I quietly knelt down, trying to fit my gangly arms under the divider.  
  
Then something started pouring down my back.  
  
It was  _cold_. I jerked in place, whacking my neck on the underside of the divider and scraping my arms as I struggled to sit up and get the fluid off my back. The hissing in my head intensified.  
  
“Oh Mads, why did you do that?” Emma asked mockingly from outside. “You should’ve used this instead.”  
  
I made the mistake of looking up as the neck of a coke bottle poked over the top of the stall, and immediately emptied itself onto my face.  
  
This one was boiling  _hot_ , like someone had left it in the summer sun for a day before picking it up. I screamed as the soda fell past my glasses and into my eyes,  _burning_ and  _fizzing_ at the same time, and then the bottle itself followed, hitting me in the  _head_ -  
  
More giggles wormed their way into my ears through songs of cold fury and burning rage. I realized that there were at least eight girls now, all reeking of sugary drinks and evil intent. I couldn’t run, they’d catch me even if I slipped out of the stall. I couldn’t fight them off. There was no way. Taylor Hebert was anything but a fighter.

***

_"The truth is, a villain is just someone people don't like." Ridley gave a hard gaze across the class, and we let that sentence sink in for a moment before we delivered the next._

***

Something clicked in my head.  
  
Taylor was no fighter.  
  
But  _Skitter_ was.  
  
I’d like to say I weighed my choices. That I thought things through, evaluated the pros and cons of what I was tempted with. But that would be lying. Skitter rose up like a wraith from the shadows of my mind, and without hesitating I fell into her embrace.  
  
The walls droned as countless bugs began announcing themselves. Lines of ants began to pour out of the cracks in the walls, spiders squeezed themselves out of the heating elements, flies buzzed out from the dirtiest corners, and the handful of bees I had found alive in the frigid winter swarmed out of my bag.  
  
 _I’m done with this._  
  
No more pretending.  
  
No more suffering.  
  
No more.

***

_"A villain is the enemy in the hero's story," I said. "And we're all the heroes of our own lives.”_

***

Sophia was never the loudest of the bunch, but I knew her voice when it yelped. Every sting-capable bug I had went to her, I didn’t care if she had allergies at this point. The moment she let up on the door, I pulled myself off the floor and threw it open.  
  
The bathroom was chaos. Everyone, including me, was covered from head to toe in bugs. The only difference was, the ones all over me didn’t bite or sting or scratch. In fact, I hardly even noticed them as I grabbed the marbles in my pocket and marched straight up to Emma.  
  
“Taylor, what-!” she started to scream.  
  
She was interrupted when I took my right hand, full of oily surprise, and slapped her as hard as I could across the face. The singers around me chorused in satisfaction as I felt the three miniature goopnades detonate against my palm, and abandon it for the next closest surface.  
  
Emma fell with a muffled shriek as inky tendrils clung to her face, grasping at her skin like a starfish. They covered almost half of her head, rendering her both blind and mute.  
  
Staring down at her let off a pressure I hadn’t even been aware of. A mental lungful of fresh air, stolen from the lungs of the screaming, crying girls around me.  
  
It felt  _good_.  
  
So good, I started laughing. Not a lot, but a few chuckles. Enough to allow me appreciate just how  _amazing_ it felt to finally hit back. Pure  _catharsis_.

***

_“So the next time you think someone’s a villain, think again.” Ridley gestured to the poster. “The people on this map deserve to be there. And to someone else, you do too.”_

***

Then the full gravity of what I had just done hit me full the face.  
  
I’d hit back. That alone was probably enough to get me in trouble, if the past was anything to go by. But I hadn’t struck out with just with my own two hands, I had  _assaulted_ eight girls with my powers.  
  
I was in an  _unbelievable_ amount of shit if anyone figured it out.  
  
The ‘fight’ was over. Now ‘flight’ kicked in, possibly even harder. I sprinted out of the girl’s bathroom, down the hall and started jumping down the stairs as fast as I could without hurting myself. The few bugs I had crawling on Ridley’s shoulder buzzed loudly, and immediately vanished- or died, I wasn’t sure- as he shifted on the spot.  
  
I dismissed the idea of just sending my bugs away. If anyone saw me as I left the school, they needed to believe that I was running from the same things as the other girls.  
  
Scourge was waiting outside the gym, tense and ready. Regret flooded me as I realized that we couldn’t leave in costume, as I hadn’t brought mine.  
  
“Change back,” I told him. “We need to leave.”  
  
“I told you to start wearing your armor under your clothes,” he said as the oil receded around him. “What happened that you give the signal, but we leave as civilians?”  
  
I grabbed his wrist and started pulling him along at a jog. “I took your advice,” I said. “I hit back.”  
  
He was quiet for a moment. “Holy shit.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You hit back hard, didn’t you?”  
  
“How sticky did you make those goopnades?” I asked.  
  
“They’re basically superglue.”  
  
Despite the panic flooding my system at the moment, I barked out a laugh. “Emma’s going to lose some hair, then.”  
  
Ridley laughed as well. “Lemme guess, all three on her face?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Fucking nice.”  
  
Objectively, it was not a heroic thing I had done. I’d hit back, harder than I’d ever been or would be hit. But as we ran through the streets back to my house, I couldn’t help but agree. For once, I felt  _fucking nice._

***

_5:51 PM_

_Ridley_

Taylor and I sat in her family room, more staring at than watching the TV. All we’d talked about since getting in was the story we would tell to anyone who asked, and nothing else. Conversation had died about three hours ago, replaced by the blaring of some senseless digital programming. It didn’t even hint it was coming back until lights flashed against the back wall.  
  
“Dad’s home’s,” Taylor muttered. I didn’t say anything, conversation was still a cadaver.  
  
The sound of door unlocking could barely be heard over the TV, but I caught it all the same. I waved over the top of the couch, calling out to Taylor’s dad.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Hebert,” I said.  
  
“Oh! Hey there, Ridley,” he responded, his voice slow and tired. “I didn’t know you were going to be here today.”  
  
I did my best fake chuckle, trying to sound like I was in good spirits. “Yeah, sorry about that. Tay had a bad day, she asked me to come over.”  
  
Mr. Hebert was over in a heartbeat, his messenger bag falling to the floor, completely forgotten. He took a seat next to Taylor and put his arm around her, asking her what was the matter.  
  
As per the script we had worked out, I got up and left the two Heberts to their family time. It was Taylor’s idea mostly, avoiding school and making sure she seemed like just another bystander in a freak bug incident. I had suggested that she play up the whole thing to her dad, thinking it would go a long way to cementing that image.  
  
Besides, Barnyard’s father covered her ass for years. This was only fair, and hardly equal.  
  
So I stood in the kitchen, sipping down a glass of water. I wasn’t really thirsty, just wasting time until Tay played her part. From what little I heard, she was doing it admirably. Though she  _could’ve_ stood for some more tears, and they wouldn’t exactly have been fake.  
  
Footsteps behind me signalled the conversation was over, far faster than I thought. Mr. Hebert stepped up beside me, his arms folded across his chest and a dour expression on his face. I didn’t say anything right off the bat, waiting for him to make the first move.  
  
A hand came to rest on my shoulder. “Thank you.”  
  
“It’s what friends are for,” I said, taking casual sip.  
  
“Friends…” he muttered. “You probably don’t know Emma-”  
  
“Can’t say I do,” I snapped, and was then hit by instant regret. But Mr. Hebert didn’t seem to notice, as he continued on without addressing it.  
  
“She’s one of… or I guess she  _was_ one of Taylor’s friends,” he said. “She was about as close with her as you could get. They were probably sisters in a different life.”  
  
I had heard most of this before, but still I nodded and acted like it was the first time.  
  
“Emma came over all the time,” he continued. “She and Taylor swapped houses to sleep over every weekend. Never thought I say it, but I kind of miss the racket they’d make.” A hint of a smile touched his lips.  
  
Then it faded as he looked down at me. He gently turned me to face him and put both hands on my shoulders, staring down with his lips in a tight line.  
  
“I owe you,” he said.  
  
I blinked. “What for?”  
  
“For being her friend. I don’t think Taylor will ever recover from losing Emma, but thanks to you, she’s moving on.”  
  
I swallowed. I felt like he was laying an awful lot on me with his words, and maybe even more by what he  _wasn’t_  saying. “I got lucky. She’s a great friend to have.”  
  
Mr. Hebert smiled again, just a bit. Then he clapped my shoulders and left me alone once more.  
  
I stood staring blankly at where he had been for about a minute. Then I snapped myself out of it, and stopped myself from wondering what it was like to have a father who cared.

***

Taylor had gone upstairs after her conversation with her dad, and hadn’t returned for over ten minutes. Seeing how late it was, I arranged for Mr. Hebert to give me a ride home, and went to say goodbye before I left.  
  
She was still in her room, with the door closed tight. I gave it a few knocks and waited outside while Mr. Hebert got his truck ready, humming nonsense to myself.  
  
She didn’t react immediately. Instead I heard the floorboards creak, very slowly, as she trudged over from her bed to the door. She popped it open only a crack, gazing out with red, puffy eyes.  
  
“Hey,” I said. “I was just about to leave, so…”  
  
“Okay.” She closed the door.  
  
I sighed and check over my shoulder for anyone watching. Satisfied there was nobody, namely Mr. Hebert, I quickly shifted form, then slid into Taylor’s room under the door and reformed behind her.  
  
“What do you want?” she asked as she sulked over to her bed. On it I could see that the covers were ruffled, and a displaced pillow that wasn’t precisely dry.  
  
“I was hoping for a proper ‘goodbye’,” I said, changing back and leaning against the door. “Something’s bothering you.”  
  
“No, really?” she asked sarcastically, glaring at me over her glasses.  
  
I wanted to reply in kind, but bit back the words just as I was about to say them. Instead, I took a deep breath and folded my arms, trying to look concerned. Because I was. “Is it about today?”  
  
Taylor didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, her bugs did the talking for her, buzzing what I thought was an affirmative. It was a short, cut-off noise, almost like Morse code.  
  
Going forward with the assumption she was answering non-verbally, I asked another question. “You’re upset about hitting back?”  
  
 _Buzz_.  
  
“Well, you shouldn’t be.” I smirked. “You’re better than any of them.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“‘No’?”  
  
 _Buzz.  
_  
"You're not comparing yourself to... I don't know, Lustrum, are you?"  
 _  
BEEP-EEP._  
  
We both jumped on surprise. I glanced out the window, the sighed and let my head hang. “Look, I have to go. Are we heading out this weekend?”  
  
 _Buzz._  
  
“Okay… okay.” I walked over to Taylor and put my hands on her shoulders. “You know where to find me, right boss?”  
  
 _Buzz._  
  
I couldn’t figure out anything reassuring to say. This was a fundamental difference we were having, it wasn’t going to be solved in a five minute talk. The best thing I could do was to leave her to sort her own thoughts out, at least for the moment. Maybe I could talk some sense into her later.  
  
I just hoped that she would come around, eventually.


	17. Taint 3.2

_April 7, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
9:33 AM

_Taylor_

For the first time in months, I was by myself in the house.

Not that I was ever truly alone. I always had my singers to whisper to me when nobody else could. But there was something to be said when it was just me, just my thoughts, and I didn’t have to worry about slipping up in front of Dad, or driving Ridley off.

_Dad_.

I shook my head and refocused on my homework. I was almost happy there was no one leaning over my shoulder, poking and prodding me towards the right answers. For once, I wanted to push through things by myself.

Even if I  _really_ hated math.

_Dad_.

At the same time, I was working on my costume, lightening the padding all over it. With the summer months coming, the one I had now would be way too hot to function in, but at the same time it was still cool enough day-to-day that I didn’t have to shave off too much. I looked forward to the growing numbers of bugs I would have at my disposal, too.

_Dad_.

I added another circle to the half-dozen my bugs were running in the basement. Barely a tenth of all of them I had control over were occupied, and the total was only getting larger every day. I still planned to order in some ant farms and DIY bee hives, but that was reserved for the day when going out and heroing actually brought some money in.

_Dad_.

The pencil in my hand creaked as my grip on it tightened. The tip snapped off for the third time this morning.

_Dad_.

I closed my eyes and tried calming myself with breathing exercises. In… hold… out. In… hold… out. Repeat ad nauseum, or until the choir stops preaching to the conductor.

…

There. I checked the clock to see how many minutes had passed.

Fourty.

_God dammit._

There was no way I was going to get anything done at the rate I was going. So instead of hitting my head against my desk until it rearranged my brain into something functional, I decided to take a break.

I trudged downstairs to the family room and threw myself into the couch, letting out a heavy sigh. The remote was right besides me, but I didn’t turn the TV on. All I wanted to do was clear my head, and if the news was on I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from watching.

_Dad_.

No amount of temple-rubbing would relieve the headache that I felt coming on, but I tried anyway.

I hadn’t been able to stop him from creeping into my thoughts since yesterday. I didn’t know… well, that was a lie. I knew  _exactly_ why I kept thinking of my dad, but every time I did I pushed it aside.

Ignoring things wouldn’t work forever. I had to tell him about me, about my powers, a some point. The longer I put it off, the worse it would be. What kind of daughter would I be if he found out from the local news station that I was a hero, and not from me? I wanted to tell him, I really did. He would be proud to know that I was out there, making our home safer.

_But_ , I thought every time,  _what if he isn’t?_

What if Dad didn’t let me continue going out? What if he tried to ground me? What would I do then? What would I tell Ridley, who was a parahuman  _because of me_?

It was just  _easier_ to not say anything. I wasn’t going to be the one to pile things onto Dad’s shoulders. Not now, not ever. If that meant capeing was kept a secret, hiding my costume and choir underneath his nose every day, then so be it.

But I’d keep going out, keep making a difference. I’d keep working to make our home a place where we could thrive. I would make it my personal task to scrape the rot off the Bay. And  _when_ things got better,  _then_ I’d tell him.

I would tell him on my own terms. Nobody else’s.

***

_April 10, 2011  
10:33 PM_

_Ridley_

My room was dark as possible. The shades were drawn, blocking out all the streetlights from outside. One of my thick winter coats was splayed across the bottom of my door, keeping out the dim, flickering light of the TV in the family room. And of course, all sources of illumination I had were extinguished, save the burning red digits of my alarm clock.

It was only in this state of near-complete darkness that I was just as blind as Scourge as Ridley. The feeling was peculiar, a definite sense of wrongness, but not quite. No words could capture what I experienced, but maybe ‘restless’ did. Trying to describe it was as much nonsense as I got when I actually felt it.

That was partially why I put myself through it. The experience of not being aware of anything, of not really feeling anything concrete, was a fantastic way to put myself to sleep. Or at least, I thought it was.

I was only going through this because I figured Taylor was never going to show. Not that I blamed her, but I had been hoping that she would be willing to try and drown out whatever complicated things she was feeling with a good old-fashioned cape night.

It was better than any game, video, or song for doing that.

_Buzz_.

My eyes snapped open.

A few moments passed. I could hear a fly flying around my room, buzzing as it went. Definitely annoying, but probably not the signal I had been hoping for.

Then it landed on my head.  _Buzz_.

Carefully, I climbed out of bed and hit the lights. Thanks to my altered state, there was no waiting for my eyes to adjust, which meant I could be just a few seconds faster getting out.

I went through several back-and-forth changes, having to switch back to my regular self after I forgot various pieces of my costume. Of course, practically speaking they were unnecessary, but the idea of not being in disguise beneath my oily skin bugged me.

After going through one final check to make sure I had indeed put on both socks and shoes, as well as everything else, I went over to my window and threw it open, looking around for Skitter. She drew my eye with a wave from across the street. With a quick check to make sure I wouldn’t land on anyone, I let myself melt and fall to the ground, doing my best to ignore the tumbling feeling that doing so brought.

Skitter waited patiently as I shrugged off the dizziness and jogged over to her, standing calmly while a cloud of bugs circled around her. I plucked the single fly she had sent to alert me off my head and let it rejoin the swarm.

“Scourge,” she said, nodding.

“Skitter,” I replied. “Feeling any better since Friday?”

She glanced off to the side for a moment. “You were right.”

“Right about what?” I knew I was right about a lot of things, but in this case I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“I'm done being a victim,” she said, although she wasn't sounding fully...  _resolute_. “From now on, I'm going to act like a hero should. No more letting the bad guys do what they want.”

“‘All that is required’?” I asked.

“I think that’s the one,” she nodded. “Well, I did something, Friday. And… I don't care how much trouble I get in for it. I'm done holding back.”

My grin felt like it would split my face, if that was even possible. “So does that mean I should on the lookout for hordes of locusts?”

She sighed. “I'm not holding back. But I'm not going all out, either. There's no point in creating trouble if I can help it.”

“Fair enough. Shall we go find some trouble, then?”

“Let’s.”

***

_11:49 PM_

_Taylor_

As much as the idea grated on me, we returned to the Docks yet again. I knew if we kept showing up here , it was practically an invitation for an ambush. But if I was going to make good on my self-promise, here was the best place to start. The Merchants and ABB clashing in the area just didn't have the numbers to keep a hold if we slowly chipped away at them.

We were deep in ABB territory. In a way, they were even better racists than E88. Maybe one in fifty people we saw were non-asians. Gang tags covered practically every inhabited building, from stores to apartments and everything in between. And I really meant  _everything_.

Scourge took point this time around. It took some arguing, but for once I wanted to just go with the flow. For tonight only, I would defer to his pathfinding, but it was agreed any scuffles we came upon would be mine to call.

He kept us out of sight, for the most part. I helped time our movement with the passing of civilians, so we were mostly invisible. The idea came up to stay on the rooftops, but I didn’t have my partner’s invincibility to rely on. A fall was just as deadly as any bullet or power. Alleyways worked well enough for getting around unseen.

Our night was mostly uneventful. I was pretty sure there had been a group of three or so actual ABB that had seen us, but capes were not something you fought without overwhelming numbers of capes of your own. Ridley had made the comparison of a humvee fighting a thousand indians, which I thought was pretty accurate.

There was one exception, however. Every so often, some  _thing_ would duck just inside the range my bugs could sense, then just as quickly duck back out. Scourge unknowingly kept us moving away from whatever it was, and it wasn’t until the sixth time I lost the song that I stopped him.

“What’s up?” he asked as I held him by the shoulder.

I pointed towards the strange entity, far beyond anything we could see. The best image I could get through my bugs was that of a truck-sized blob of flesh moving way faster than anything I could think of.

“There are some other capes, I think,” I told him. “There’s this thing, it kind of smells like a dog.”

His eyes narrowed a bit, searching the ground behind me. I kept my bugs following the sort-of dog thing as well as they could, but it was hard. It kept changing directions, sometimes elevations too. Almost like it was chasing something. Or maybe running.

“Hellhound,” Scourge said at last. My own memory clicked into place as soon as he said the name.

“Which probably means the rest of that gang is close too,” I said, and from the grunt I got he was thinking the same. “The Undersiders.”

“I don’t like those odds,” he said slowly. “I don’t want to fight them if we don’t have to.”

“The Protectorate might be already. I think they’re running.”

“No kidding?” He took a step in the direction I was pointing. “They’re headed… inland?”

I did a quick mental check, then nodded. “You’re right. They might be heading into a trap.”

“The heroes, or the villains?” Scourge sighed. “Doesn’t matter. We’re going, aren’t we?”

“Heroes.”

He didn’t argue.

***

We ran deeper into ABB territory, not bothering to stop for anyone who might see us. Hellhound’s creatures, which were known for carrying the rest of her gang, were always at the very edge of my range no matter how fast of a pace we set. I briefly wondered if that was deliberate, then immediately cast the thought aside.

_Nobody_ knew who we were. But that was all but certain to change after tonight.

There was something else in the air. It was unnoticeable at first, but gradually built up as Scourge and I got closer to the two groups of parahumans duking it out. The smell of  _blood_ and  _fire_.

‘No holds barred’ really meant something different when you added in powers. It was only thanks to me being a Master and not, say, a Striker, that I wasn’t too worried about the upcoming fight.

Other scents started creeping in as more of the Hellhounds slipped into my song. Charred leather, exhausted flesh. Fear. Panic. A void of both. And so much blood. Everything had its own smell, its own note, and there were no less than four distinct songs that made a cacophonous performance I had never even dreamed of.

Then, without warning, the hounds changed direction. They weren’t heading straight for us, but maybe if we kept going forward we’d all meet at the same point.

“They know we’re here!” I said.

“How-” Ridley started, but cut himself off. Tattletale was the only answer that made sense, and even with the only known aspect of her power being ‘Thinker’, that covered a lot of possibilities.

He growled and started running faster, starting to outpace me. “I’ve got Hellhound and Grue! You stay back, pick off the others and tell the Protectorate we’re on their side!”

He was out of sight in barely a minute.

***

I stuck to alleyways until I was almost on top of the fight. On the way there, I discovered that it wasn’t the Protectorate the Undersiders were fighting.

No, it was  _Lung_ , the Sunken Dragon himself.

I nearly tripped over myself when I realized the source of all the fire and burning wasn’t some new tinkertech weapon, but a scale-ridden dragon-man. Big, burly, mean, and  _angry_. That too drifted on the wind, a note that clung to everything else he did.

As I crept closer to the three-way fight between Scourge, Lung, and the Undersiders, I watched through any bugs that could stand being in the area. The picture I saw was low-resolution at best, but being able to see anything from a distance was beyond helpful.

Scourge had talked about the possibilities fighting with an amorphous body presented, but I had never really considered it until now. He was fighting in ways I hadn’t imagined, using every alterable trait he had to try and fight Lung. One hand became a set of finger-like blades, which skated off Lung’s scales and sent sparks flying everywhere. Another was a massive hammer, delivering blunt force that would force his opponent back a step. And every so often he would fire off a goopnade to try and tie Lung down.

It wasn't enough. Lung had already been fighting for some time, and it showed. He stood eight feet tall, arms and legs covered in grimy scales, turning every blow that landed and incinerating the oil that came free of Scourge's body. Fire arced around his body, coming from and ending in nowhere. He seemed content to just let Scourge rage uselessly against him, growing tougher and larger the longer it went on.

Occasionally Lung would respond to a hit, ripping off the gooey limb and burning it to ash. By the time I got to the fringes of the fight, Scourge had lost his entire body’s worth of oil three times over. But whatever reservoir he drew from seemed endless, replenishing him in seconds from anything Lung threw at him.

Neither could gain an edge against the other. But with the nature of Lung’s power, that stalemate could only last so long.

The Undersiders, or what was left of them, weren’t exactly idle either. There was an unspoken truce between them, Scourge, and by extension me. Lung was the bigger threat by miles, and they were working together to take him down.

The Hellhounds were the biggest help. Scourge was a shield of sorts, drawing the worst of Lung’s attention. Two hounds were striking out whenever Hellhound whistled the command, latching onto Lung’s scaly limbs, delivering savage bites, then retreating before he could focus on them.

Around the entire fight, a thick black fog billowed out from Grue. It concealed the dog’s movements, allowing them the element of surprise almost every time. Grue himself didn’t do much more than keep the fog up, and if his profile was to be believed he couldn’t do much more.

I could sense the other Undersiders hiding in an alley half a block up the road. Two humans, and one hound. Only one seemed to be in fighting shape, the one with the renaissance getup. His name escaped me for the moment. The other person was Tattletale, clutching her arm and seething pain anger despair pain.

The Hellhound was dead. I didn’t need a dirge to tell me there was no way it survived the gaping hole in its chest.

All of this saw as I stepped out onto the street, seeing with my own eyes Lung looming above the artificial darkness. I couldn’t waste any more time. Lung was already scaling out of control. It was theorized that he could be taken down if hit hard and fast enough, and that was supported by sporadic videos I had seen on PHO. But the question was, was it too late already?

_Only one way to find out._

Half of all my singers were sent after Lung. Some started dying immediately, cooked alive or outright consumed by the fires surrounding him. I quickly realized that Grue’s smoke hampered, or outright blocked my commands, as hundreds of record started skipping in and out. Those who were affected were all ground-bound, so I had some of the flying bugs start picking them up and doing bombing runs on the Sunken Dragon.

Lung was a walking furnace, and it was only by some miracle that he didn’t melt the ground that he walked on. Nevertheless, for all the intimidation that was literally rolling off him, he started jerking and spasming as the countless bites took their toll. Not all of him was covered, and my bugs took full advantage of that.

Lung staggered back with a roar as some bugs found their way onto his face. The battlecry was nothing short of  _disgusting_ , but I pushed them on, breaking them against his lips, his nose, even his eyes. Venomous or not, it didn’t matter, so long as they kept on  _biting scratching eating stinging._

And then, despite the fact I was a hundred yards away, I felt a blow to my chest as he erupted into fire, killing every insect on him and tossing most of Grue’s smoke to the wind. Thousands of voices cried out before being rendered mute. In the space of half a second, my choir was cut in two.

The sound of silence was  _deafening_.

It was all I could do to not fall to my knees, but even still, I wobbled. My breath came hard for a few moments, until the sudden yawning chasm in my head was filled with the voices of those that remained.

My hands came up to rub at my temples, trying to draw out the needles that suddenly found themselves lodged there. That had never happened before. I had never lost so many at once. Would that happen every time I lost a section? What would happen if…

I shook my head. There was no  _time_ , I reminded myself.

But as it turned out, there was. Lung’s burst of fire had opened him up for a few precious seconds, as he refocused and verified he was free of any bugs. Everyone saw the opening and pounced like a pack of wolves.

The Hellhounds lunged again at the shrill whistle from their master, doing their best to hamstring Lung. Tattletale and Regent burst from their hiding spot, firing at Lung with a handgun and some tinkertech lightning gun. Grue drew a pair of odd metal stick-like weapons and rushed forward, hammering wherever the Hounds didn’t have locked between their jaws.

Nothing so simple for my partner. Scourge sat back, just staring a Lung, until the gunfire stopped. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve said he was startled by it. But the moment it stopped, he sprang into motion. He lost all semblance of human appearance, turning into a  _maw_ of oil, full of grayed teeth and white pinprick eyes, that flung itself over Lung.

The Sunken Dragon started roaring, muffled as he was by the goop that was trying to swallow him into itself. The other villains stopped their attack to watch as he thrashed and clawed at the oil that covered him. His fires started flaring and subsiding in short bursts as he fell to his knees.

And just for a second, I realized we were about to take down Lung. We were about to accomplish what no hero ever had. What no  _Hunter-Killer_  could do.

Then Scourge exploded.


	18. Taint 3.3

_April 11, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
12:13 AM_

_Melissa_

I never liked driving.  
  
It reminded me too much of my parents, and the long road trips we would take to campgrounds all over Wisconsin. I’d fall asleep on the way both to and from, just watching the trees and highway zoom by. Sometimes I used my sister as a pillow, sometimes it was the other way around. I was a silly little girl, entertained by simple things.  
  
I still liked simple things, if you could count a motorcycle as such. It was an old 2005 Ninja model, but I liked to think I kept it up pretty well. I allowed myself enough vanity to have it painted in the colors of my outfit, with a few suns just in case people got any stupid ideas. And granted, maybe the whole idea of having a motorcycle be my sole transportation was itself stupid. But the important thing was that it got me where I needed to go in a hurry, and it kept me from having to, gag me, drive.  
  
It was pretty ironic that I was taking a Ninja to kill a dragon. Or was it coincidental? Whatever.  
  
I had been scouting out the Asian Bad Boy’s turf for about a week now, trying to pin down Lung’s movements. For having such a fearsome reputation, you’d never guess he was as lazy or sporadic as he was. His tastes changed with the weather, which in New England was really saying something. It was nothing like the big-league gang leaders that I worked for, time to time.  
  
Just my luck, then, that I had caught wind of a cape fight going on earlier in the night. I had brushed it off at the time, figuring that Brockton Bay must have at least a dozen every day.  
  
Then I felt  _heat_.  
  
It was embarrassing how long it took me to stop gawking like an idiot and actually get suited up. I hadn’t felt any pyrokinetics in so long, that whatever display Lung had done had left me drooling. Like living off ramen noodles for a year, and then walking into an all-you-can-eat buffet.  
  
Not something I’d recommend, by the way.  
  
I’ll say this, the residents around here knew when it was safe to play gawk game, and when to get the hell inside. It was less obvious at night, when there were fewer people around, but you still noticed it. When a cape fight was in the air, most unpowered folks had the sense to hide. The people may change from place to place, but their habits don’t.  
  
That made it all the easier for me to grab my bike and chase after the Sunken Dragon. A tiny shiver ran up my spine every time I felt him throw a gout of fire, and as I got closer I was practically vibrating in my seat. A shred of pity dwelt in my heart for whoever was on Lung’s receiving end, because he was  _pissed_.  
  
It took longer than I would have liked to get to… the Docks, I thought it was called. I still had no idea why the ‘Docks’ extended miles inland, but hey, I hadn’t named the place. People liked to name their surroundings pretty stupidly. Like the Phoenicians. Who the hell named their new city, ‘New City’?  
  
My bike was stashed behind a dumpster about a block away. Unsanitary, and my dad would’ve thrown a fit, but it had worked up till now for keeping it out of sight. I promised to give it an extra-thorough washing tomorrow, and ran the rest of the way on foot.  
  
Lung wrestled with some goo monster in the middle of a huge black cloud. The whole scene was kind of cool to watch, but unfortunately my current helmet lacked the tinkertech recording gear, so I briefly lamented that I wouldn’t get to watch it again.  
  
I skidded to a halt about twenty yards from their little duel, just in time for the goo monster to bite it. There was a flash of fire and heat, and what had looked like Lung struggling with an ugly coat ended with little puddles of black goop spraying everywhere, and over pretty much everyone present. The smell of burnt oil filled the air as some of the stuff flash-cooked off Lung’s scaley skin.  
  
A huge spray of fire followed the monster’s demise. Most of it flew into the air and faded into nothing, but a few bits were flung against the ground, the buildings, anything in front of Lung. One of the other capes, some chick in a bodysuit, screamed her lungs out as a bolt of fire caught her face and promptly ignited it.  
  
I whistled to myself. Then immediately regretted it as his head whipped around to face me.  
  
I stepped up, ignoring the leather-clad cape that rushed out of the darkness and past me, clapping slowly and dramatically. The Sunken Dragon bared his teeth and flexed his hands, looking ready for another fight. He wouldn’t get it, but he didn’t need to know that.  
  
“Nice work,” I called out to him. “That puts you at fifteen, I think. Or maybe sixteen, they never figured out if the chick in New Orleans was you.”  
  
“Who are you,” he growled. God, he had a nice voice. Like James Earl Jones pureed with gravel.  _Mongolian_ gravel.  
  
“Oh, me?” I smiled at him from behind my visor, placing a hand on my chest innocently.  
  
“I’m the last person you’ll ever see.”  
  
That got him angry. Well, angier. He tensed as the fires around him flared up, wreathing him like one of those dumb Aleph… anime? I was pretty sure it was anime.  
  
His face twitched as I held up my hand. I had confidence he’d be able to sense what I was doing, but he couldn’t stop it. Nobody could stop it except me.  
  
Orange sparks flickered just above his head. He looked up, snarling at them, as if that made a difference. Heat became fire, fire became an inferno, the inferno became  _life_.  
  
I saw the exact moment everything clicked for him. Who I was. What I was doing. What was going to happen to him.  
  
I fucking  _lived_ for that moment.  
  
He moved quick. In the half-second it took for my star to burst into existence, he had already focused his own power into holding it back. It gave him just enough resistance to be able to keep it suspended above his head, rather than crushing him into the pavement as I intended.  
  
Lung took a knee as the ball of fire and death the size of an SUV bore down on him. I could feel him pushing back against my power, and if he had had more time to ramp up, I think he might’ve been able to shrug it off entirely. But it was too much, too soon for him, as I was sure many of his ‘favorites’ in the brothels had experienced. Or not, who knew? Maybe that was why he was so angry all the time.  
  
Even if he was a disappointment in the bedroom, he certainly wasn’t here. Most pyrokinetics, when they lost their hands, lost the focus to resist. Lung had no such weakness, it seemed. He kept pushing as my sun started devouring everything below his wrists, and even then seemed to be gaining strength. I could feel his stumps writhing on the surface of my star as they tried to regenerate.  
  
My sun surged larger, brighter,  _hotter_ , approaching the size of a dump truck. Lung faltered and lost his forearms to the star, snarling and spitting all the while. I called out to him, unable to help myself. “Don’t worry, Lung, I don’t think ol’ Levy could do much either!”  
  
It was a bad habit. It was going to get me killed one day. But with warmth flooding my limbs, and the prospect of a pretty payday sweet on my tongue, I just couldn’t resist.  
  
I started cackling as I burned the Sunken Dragon to nothing.  
  
Then there was a bu _oh god BEES-_

***

_Taylor_

Done, done, done. I was  _done_.  
  
Everyone was getting stung today. Villains, mercenaries, dragons alike, I might have even gone after heroes, if they were present. I was ignoring everything until it was  _writhing_.  
  
I ignored the yelps of the Hellhounds as bugs crawled over them, through them, leaving not an inch of skin unmolested.  
  
I ignored the curses of Grue as he doused himself with his darkness, only to find it ineffective against bugs who had only a single command in their minds.  
  
I ignored the bellow of Hellhound herself as her minions cried out, even as she was attacked by the same forces.  
  
I ignored the sputtered curses of both the pyro cape and Regent as the latter was stung repeatedly, and the former as singers wormed their way under her helmet. Her concentration and her huge fireball vanished in barely a second.  
  
I ignored Tattletale as her face burned and melted from Lung’s own fireball, the same one he used to blow Scourge to bits.  
  
 _Two’fer, as Dad would say._  
  
Her screams were music. I let them continue as they were.  
  
I focused everything I could spare on Lung, to ensure he stayed down in the aftermath of the pyrokinetic attack. I went for the same tactic Scourge did, drowning him as best I could in a sea of chitin, venom, and song. New bugs I hadn’t felt a moment ago were suddenly caught in the grasp of my power and pulled toward me, for the singular task of making one of the most powerful parahumans in history  _drop_.  
  
I didn’t stop until his exhausted, beyond-charred frame stopped twitching.  
  
Many of my bugs still died from the raw heat radiating from the area. But every single death, every bit of silence was worth the result. The only thing that lingered was a burning itch on my arm.  
  
The Undersiders were climbing to their feet. Or at least, most of them were. Grue was the least injured, and still trying to climb to his feet as he was swarmed by my bugs. I let them settle on him and approached with my choir surrounding me, just in case he got any ideas.  
  
“Woah, woah,” he said, holding his hands up. “Easy. I give up, ok?”  
  
I folded my arms and glared down at him. “Sorry if I don’t believe you. You just tried to fight Lung, why would you stop for a few bees?”  
  
“He… we weren’t trying to fight him,” he clarified. “Look, miss…?”  
  
“Skitter.”  
  
“Skitter,” he repeated. “We were running from him. We didn’t want anyone to get hurt-”  
  
I scoffed and leaned down to grab a fistful of goop off the ground. “Does this-” I shook it firmly- “look like  _nobody got hurt_?”  
  
Grue tried several times to speak, but kept stopping short. “I… that wasn’t a construct?”  
  
“No,” I growled.  
  
“Fuck, I... I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be,” I told him. “Just be grateful I’m about to save your teammate.”  
  
I started walking away to find a phone. Hundreds of eyes monitored everyone present, ready to spring into action if they so much as sneezed. Grue waited until I wasn’t looking directly at him before he collapsed to the ground, panting.  
  
Normally I would have felt some satisfaction from taking down a villain. An entire gang’s worth of villains, no less. But I didn’t think anybody had really ‘won’ here.  
  
No, we had merely avoided losing.

***

_Ridley_

_I have no mouth, and I must scream…_  
  
I had no idea how long it took me to think that. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours. Each word that registered seemed to take an agonizing amount of time, moving at a snail’s pace through whatever counted as my brain.  
  
 _...if only to scare the shit out of Tay._  
  
I didn’t come to in any way that made sense. I wasn’t standing over Lung, choking him out like I planned. I wasn’t standing up some twenty-odd feet away, from a puddle of me that had gathered itself together.  
  
No, I woke up clinging to a ledge on the roof of some random apartment building. As I blinked and looked around myself, I realized very quickly that I was nowhere near ‘OK’. I was about as far from OK as you could be.  
  
There was nothing I could do at the moment, besides look around and try to get my bearings. Lung was almost directly below me, strangely calm and quiet. Either I had successfully choked the shit out of him, or someone else had beaten him into the pavement.  
  
...Probably the latter.  
  
Several times I tried to dislodge myself from the ledge, but failure met me every time. I had no idea how big of a blob I actually inhabited, and wondered if I could only control myself while I had something close to a human-sized body. Powers had been known to have dumber restrictions.  
  
Like Marquis. He controlled other people’s bones, but only while they were  _outside_ of the person? At that point you might as well just hit them with the stupid thing.  
  
The Undersiders had regrouped in the aftermath of the fight. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the way some of them were gesturing they were arguing about something. And with my new life as a security camera, I couldn’t get any closer to figure it out.  
  
There was one more cape, one I hadn’t seen before. She was stumbling around, swatting at a cloud of bugs that seemed to be quite interested in her. A helmet that I assumed went with her outfit was lying on the ground, and if I had to guess its resident bug population was a bit too high for her.  
  
Skitter was the only one I couldn’t see present. She was likely looking to call in the situation, but I wondered if that was the best thing to do, considering the amount of capes present. A couple gangbangers was one thing, but the-  
  
A flicker of motion caught my eye. The Undersiders were gone, nothing but a cloud of slowly dissipating smoke left.  
  
My only regret was that I didn’t have a hand with which to facepalm.  
  
The other cape had staggered her way over to an alleyway. She stayed out of sight for a moment, leaving me unsure if she was just running or was being herded there by Skitter. Knowing her, it was the latter, she probably had a whole ‘nother swarm ready to drop on the cape’s head.  
  
The motorcycle that zoomed out seconds later said it was the former.  
  
I did a mental recount of the situation. I was blown to bits, which was turning out to be a lot less lethal for me than most. Lung was unconscious, which was good. The Undersiders, numbering four plus at least three minions, were gone. That was bad. And there was a mystery cape in the city, who was far too well equipped to be a newbie like me and Skitter. That was really bad.  
  
But there was nothing to be done, at the moment. Not until I regenerated, which was taking an awful long time.  
  
Almost on cue, I felt a sudden pop in my body, like a limb stretched for the first time in hours. The ground rushed up to meet me as I fell from the roof, across which I splattered painlessly.  
  
I drew myself up as best I could. Dozens of little strings danced in my eyes for the first time since waking up, strings which I pulled on with every bit of will I could muster. Little blobs of oil began drawing themselves closer to me, unable to resist the strings that bound them.  
  
Literally rebuilding myself, bit by bit, I crawled over to Lung. Call it morbid curiosity, but I wanted to see the famous supervillain for myself. Preferably in a situation where he wasn’t trying to rip me apart.  
  
The road where he had been standing was melted into a small depression from all the heat he had been putting out. Lung himself laid in the middle, still partially transformed into a dragon. But even as I looked him over, I could see his metal scales starting to peel and flake off. It seemed like it didn’t matter if Lung lost or won the fight, he transformed back when it was over.  
  
And he had definitely lost this one. But ‘how’ was the question. I resolved to ask Skitter later, once the Protectorate had cleared out the area. There was something dangerous about Lung, in spite of his unconsciousness, that left me uneasy.  
  
There wasn’t much to do but sit and wait, at this point. I took a seat on the sidewalk, waiting for both my partner and the remaining bits of me to come back.

***

Headlights flared on the road not long after the last little blob of oil gave me my left pinky back.  
  
They were too focused to be a car or truck, and there was a distinct lack of noise that you wouldn’t get with anything other than an electric vehicle. I knew it wasn’t just me, either; my hearing had popped back in right after my right arm.  
  
The lights flashed twice in greeting. I gave a single wave as the bike rolled up, and only after it came to rest and shut off the blindingly bright headlights that I saw it was Armsmaster, head of the local Protectorate. In hindsight, it was silly of me to expect anyone else.  
  
Armsmaster was clad in his signature armor, a blue/grey set of power armor that gave him strength beyond his human self. Two halberds, mostly collapsed, rested on his back. He brandished one the moment he stepped off his bike, walking up to me with a minute frown.  
  
Armsmaster was clad in his signature armor, a blue/grey set of power armor that gave him strength beyond his human self. Two halberds, mostly collapsed, rested on his back. He brandished one the moment he stepped off his bike, walking up to me with a minute frown.  
  
“Identify yourself,” he said as he approached.  
  
“Scourge, at your service,” I said, tilting my head in greeting. And then, just for fun: “And you are…?”  
  
“Armsmaster, head of the local Protectorate,” he said. I noticed the whole time he kept a solid grip on his weapon. “Hero, or villain?”  
  
I blinked. “Hero, obviously. What, is the dragon lying on the ground not obvious enough?”  
  
“You don’t look the part,” he told me as he walked over to Lung. “Your partner likely doesn’t, either.”  
  
“Eh, she kinda-wait.” I narrowed my eyes. “I never told you I had a partner.”  
  
“You just confirmed it,” he informed me, “and prior to that, you and the independant known as Skitter were recorded in a police report some time ago.”  
  
Oh yeah, we did do that thing one time, I remembered. Still, it didn’t help with my bruised ego. After all, how could one get more heroic than a humanoid body of oil? I was the lifeblood of the whole world!  
  
“Regardless,” he continued, kneeling down next to Lung and pulling out some Tinker device, “there were several other villains reported as apprehended. Where are they?”  
  
“Uh…” I looked away from him. “They… got away.”  
  
“And you didn’t stop them?”  
  
“Hey look, it was getting pretty Godzilla: 2000 around here, okay? And I was playing Orga.”  
  
Armsmaster paused for a moment to look back at me. “The monster known as ‘Orga’ was violently exploded from within, and died.”  
  
I folded my arms. “Yeah. I don’t recommend trying it.”  
  
He stood up and approached me. “Most independents do not survive their first contact with a parahuman of Lung’s caliber. You’re exceedingly fortunate you survived.”  
  
“I’m exceedingly lucky my partner was able to take him out. I guess enough bees can put any problem down.”  
  
“Bees,” Armsmaster said flatly.  
  
“Bees,” I confirmed. “Skitter controls  _all_ the bees.”  
  
“Unlikely.” He shook his head, moving back over to his bike to start typing on an unseen screen. “There have been no large-scale disturbances of bee populations. Your partner likely has a numerical or range restriction that is effectively infinite for your purposes.”  
  
I blinked. Armsmaster was known to be a little dense, but this right here was practically a micro-singularity in the shape of a man.  
  
But regardless, with the official hero here, I could only assume that his backup would be arriving in minutes, possibly seconds. Unless his bike really was that much faster than anything else the PRT or Protectorate had. It wouldn’t surprise me, after all, Tinkers always kept their best toys for themselves.  
  
The sound of Armsmaster typing was joined by a low buzzing in my ear. I looked around, and sure enough, Skitter had just rounded the corner, approaching me and Armsmaster with at a calm pace.  
  
I wondered how much of that was self-control, and how much was nervousness. She always spoke fondly of Armsmaster whenever he came up, and now here she was. Not everyone got to meet their heroes face-to-face, especially not on even ground.  
  
“Hail, Skitter,” I called out, waving to her.  
  
She didn’t respond verbally, only amping up the buzzing in my ear. I noticed her arms were folded behind her as she came closer, but rather than making her look confident, the slight bend at her waist seemed more… defensive.  
  
“Armsmaster,” she said evenly. Softly, even.  
  
The hero stood up from his bike, still holding his halberd. He held out his free hand to her, which she shook hesitantly. “You must be Skitter.”  
  
“I am,” she nodded, speaking a little louder. “And Scourge here is my partner.”  
  
Armsmaster grunted. “Yes, he said as much. Some advice to you both, find more heroic appearances. The fact that you’re both currently unregistered is the only reason we're having this conversation.”  
  
Skitter’s eyes behind her mask widened. She looked like she’d been struck, instead of spoken harshly to. A flare of irritation ran through me as Armsmaster turned back to his computer instead of facing us as he continued to speak.  
  
“The PRT will be here shortly to contain Lung and transport him to suitable holding facilities,” he told us. “Assault and Miss Militia will oversee the transfer. I recommend that you two leave now, so any remaining ABB forces do not discover you were accomplices.”  
  
 _Are… are we being dismissed?_  
  
“Are you… dismissing us?” Skitter asked.  
  
“No, I am attempting to protect you from reprisal,” Armsmaster said firmly. “Aside from that, you are too young to be attempting captures of this, or any caliber without support or supervision.”  
  
“And what are we supposed to do,” I asked, “sit around and pretend we can’t hear women being kidnapped?”  
  
“Or that we can’t fight to help others?” Skitter followed up.  
  
“No. I would have you join the Wards. Far too many young heroes wind up in situations like this-” he gestured to Lung- “ and die. I understand the drive, but you must consider y-your families.” His voice skipped noticeably towards the end. It sounded less like a damaged record, and more like a computer glitch, making me wonder if this was even Armsmaster standing in front of us.  _Is he a robot? Holy shit, was PHO right about something for once?_  
  
Skitter and I looked at one another almost simultaneously.  
  
“We’re not joining the Wards,” Skitter said.  
  
“Statistically speaking-”  
  
“Statistically speaking, we don’t get along with other teenagers,” I sniped. “Of course, if you’d rather we spend more time fighting the other Wards instead of the villains, then sign us up.”  
  
Skitter glared at me.  
  
“Hey, he’s your idol, not mine.”  
  
She shook her head. “Let’s go Scourge.” A glare was leveled at Armsmaster. “Let’s leave this to the ‘official’ heroes.”  
  
Said ‘official hero’ didn’t say anything further as we took off at a jog, just in time for the PRT sirens to reach our ears. But neither they, nor their Protectorate backup bothered to stop us.  
  
It was a long, quiet run home.


	19. Taint 3.4

_April 11, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
6:28 AM_

_Taylor_

I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, something I was regretting dearly. I wondered how anyone managed to go out on patrol and still being functional in the morning. It seemed impossible, unless there was some super-coffee circulating around the Protectorate.  
  
At times like this, I envied Ridley. I was heaving with every step, trying to push through the molasses that my brain seemed to be swimming in. He, on the other hand, seemed no worse for wear, keeping in step with me in a way that seemed effortless.  
  
It was nothing less than concentrated Breaker  _bullshit_.  
  
Our morning runs on weekdays were kept short out of necessity, two miles in just about twenty minutes. Ordinarily, it was a good wake-up exercise. But today, it was just one more thing to do before I was allowed to sleep.  
  
We stopped at the top of my street, slowing down from a run to a walk and generally just cooling down. Ridley’s power may have given him a night’s worth of rest with a back-and-forth transformation, but he had agreed to never use it to skimp out on exercise. Thus, it was a small comfort that he was just as winded as I was.  
  
“Today is... gonna suck…” he panted.  
  
I made a noise that was supposed to sound like agreement. It came out like dying parakeet.  
  
“You… you need me when they call you down?”  
  
I shook my head limply.  
  
We had been over this at least twice. Friday still hung over us- well, mostly me- and even having told my dad what happened, I was worried about the fallout. Some things weren't an issue; there was no way anyone knew about my powers, and Ridley had handed me a few more goopnades this morning as cover. They would be revealed as homemade prank tools, nothing more.  
  
Still, as the beginning of school continued to creep closer, doubt sunk ever deeper into my gut.

***

_7:54 AM  
  
“Attention all students.”_  
  
The entirety of homeroom quieted down. Announcements this early were never good. Everyone in school was going to know I was in some deep shit when my name was called, but none of them knew exactly how bad it was going to be.  
  
I handled my impending doom well, all things considered. My head slowly touched down on my desk, just waiting for the words to come over the intercom.  
  
 _“The Brockton Bay Wards team is here as part of the Protectorate Public Outreach program, along with heroes Battery and Velocity. Students will be called down by year to the auditorium for a special presentation.”_  
  
No way. There was no such thing as a coincidence this big.  
  
 _“All students are reminded that any illegal activity, including support for local gangs, on school premises will not be tolerated.”_  
  
I waited for the other shoe to drop. A call for me down to the office. Or Sophia, or Emma, or anyone else who had been involved in what happened on Friday. But all that came was a single click, signalling the intercom was turned off.  
  
Nothing. There were going to be no consequences for Friday. I couldn't believe it. There was literally no world in which this made sense.  
  
“Taylor, no sleeping on the desks,” the teacher called out. I never bothered to learn their name, they were just one of many.  
  
I sat back up, mentally reeling with the possibilities. Surely there was no way that I had all but mutilated Emma three days earlier, and nothing was happening. On impulse, I let a chord through the school, and listened keenly to the echoes. Not only did I not hear Emma, I didn’t hear Sophia. I didn’t hear Julie, or Lizzy, or Rebecca or anyone who I could remember.  
  
 _Click. “Would all... freshmen, please report to the auditorium. Thank you.” Click._  
  
Was that something to cheer for, or agonize over?

***

_9:37 AM  
  
Click._  
  
My fellow sophomores were all but sprinting out of Ms. Knott’s class, not even bothering to listen as she warned them of their assignments being due regardless if they were present or not. It was no problem for me, I knew I could get it done even if I only stayed an extra ten minutes after school. But for everyone else?  
  
Ridley had been rubbing off on me too much, because I smiled just a bit to myself, knowing they wouldn’t be so capable.  
  
There was no rush to the presentation for me. Yesterday’s outing- or was it today's?- had thoroughly destroyed any ideas I had left about the ‘heroic’ nature of the local capes. The bald-faced hornet I had hidden in Ridley’s hoodie placed him at the other end of the school, which further reduced the hurry.  
  
I made it to the auditorium pretty quickly, and stood outside as the other kids flocked in. Maybe if I was somebody popular, I could’ve saved us good seats, but I had no such luck. And using my powers to clear a space around me was just asking for trouble. No, it was better to simply wait like a normal person.  
  
‘Normal’.  
  
What  _was_ normal, anyway? Just a few months ago, and ‘normal’ would have been me waiting for everyone else to enter, so I could get a seat as far away from anyone as possible. Now, ‘normal’ was getting that same seat because I was waiting for a friend.  
  
It was almost funny how life worked, sometimes.  
  
Ridley showed up just as the last students were trickling in. Nothing was said as we walked in. I didn’t bother looking for good seats, choosing the top-most row for us to sit in. My partner had the aisle seat. The view we had of the stage was pretty fuzzy, but I didn’t care for the Wards enough for it to bother me. Neither did he, as far as I knew.  
  
I could hear the Wards whispering amongst themselves behind the closed curtains, along with the heroes shushing them. It immediately became apparent that the full team wasn’t actually here, as there were only seven people onstage. Had the full team been present, that number would’ve been nine.  
  
Still, it was a good showing for a place like Winslow. Maybe they thought any ‘potential recruits’ would be better encouraged to come forward if they saw kids their age up there, getting all the attention. I mean, Vista being present kind of set them back a bit, but she had a way of seeming larger than life, despite her stature.  
  
The lights dimmed just a bit, to emphasize the weak spotlights pointed at the stage. The curtains drew open to expose the heroes, all lined up at the front of the stage. They all bowed as one, no doubt with practiced ease, and were met with polite applause. The Wards then took a step back and sat in chairs just behind them, while Battery and Velocity remained up front to begin speaking.  
  
“Good… morning!” Battery said with a smile, checking her watch. A few people laughed. “Wow, already feels like we’ve been here all day. How is everyone doing today?”  
  
It degenerated into standard stuff from there. This was so obviously a PR thing, so I did my best to block out the noise from thousands of mimics who all wanted to be Battery.  
  
“Seems like we’re clear for the day,” Ridley muttered beside me.  
  
“Seems like,” I said. “I was kind of nervous, after last night.”  
  
“I hear you. My mom’s starting to catch on. How’s things with your dad?”  
  
I sighed. “He still doesn’t know.”  
  
Ridley hummed. Our conversation was briefly interrupted as someone came in through the doors behind us, and decided our row was the best seating in the house.  
  
“‘Scuse me, sorry,” he said as he took the seat on the other side of me. “Sorry about that.”  
  
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to dismiss him as best I could.  
  
Apparently, though, he had an interest in me. “Haven’t seen you around before,” he said, smiling. “Name’s Dean.”  
  
His pressure was unfamiliar. That was odd, even worrying, considering I had gotten a profile of just about everyone in Winslow by now. Still, it was possible, if unlikely, that I had missed him.  
  
“Taylor,” I responded, shaking the proffered hand.  
  
Only then did I get a look at him. And it was a  _good_ look, all things considered. Dean had very firm features, and seemed to have an athlete’s body to go with it. He exchanged names and nods with Ridley before turning his attention back to me.  
  
“So, how about that presentation, eh?” he asked. “I swear they’re all the same.”  
  
“Pretty much,” I agreed. “It’s all just a bunch of hot air. I mean, maybe some of the Wards believe it, but the heroes have got to know better.”  
  
“Probably,” Dean shrugged. “It’s all for the press though, right? And they’ll eat that up like there’s no tomorrow.”  
  
“Here’s hoping they choke on it,” Ridley piped up.  
  
I smirked despite myself. The comment was harsh, but in my opinion, deserved. “Here, here.”  
  
Dean chuckled, but only through my swarm could I tell he was slightly unnerved by my partner’s comment. In fact, as I took a second look, he was unnaturally blank. If I had to find him in a crowd, I might have more luck looking for the  _lack_ of emotion, instead of whatever his default actually was. Maybe that was why I hadn’t recognized him.  
  
“Oh wait, here’s the good bit,” he smiled and pointed onstage.  
  
Aegis and Clockblocker had come forward, taking the mics from Battery and Velocity. They exchanged words that only they could hear, though I caught something about a ‘dumb idea’ and someone ‘being an ass’ from some bugs just under their feet. The context wasn’t too hard to guess.  
  
“So yeah, no need for introductions,” Aegis spoke first. “You all know who we are.”  
  
“Ladies, please contain yourselves,” Clockblocker snipped. That earned him a glare from his teammate, but the Wards leader continued on without comment.  
  
“On a more serious note, we just wanted to talk to you all about… well, each other. Anybody know the number of people in Massachusetts?” He took a moment to look around the auditorium. “Yeah, me neither until this morning. It’s about six and a half million.”  
  
“About one in every eight thousand wins the grand prize,” Clockblocker said. “And if you hate math like me, well, first of all you’re not crazy.” Again, a few chuckles from the crowd. “Second, that means there’s somewhere close to eight hundred capes in the state.”  
  
“Chances are you either know someone who’s a parahuman, or know someone who knows someone who is. They’re that widespread, and not all of them are adults.” Aegis held out an arm to gesture to the rest of his team. “Some of them are just kids, like us.  
  
“Now, some of them hide their powers. Who the heck knows why. Some people are scared, some maybe aren’t in a good place.” The Wards leader paused for a moment. “The fact is, usually they need help. The kind of help that only people who’ve been in their position can give.”  
  
“We’re basically asking you to snitch,” Clockblocker said. “Except in this case, you’re usually snitching on Life, because Life’s a bi-”  
  
There was a blur of color. It took me a moment to realize that it had been Velocity, cuffing Clockblocker upside the head and returning to his seat in the literal blink of an eye. Everyone laughed as the Ward rubbed his head, while the hero sat with his hands folded and picture perfect posture.  
  
“Because Life isn’t nice,” Aegis finished.  
  
Ridley snorted. “Gee, what a marvel thought. ‘Life isn’t nice.’”  
  
“PR,” Dean reminded him.  
  
“High school students,” he countered.  
  
Dean only shook his head and looked back to the stage. I empathized with him, but didn’t have much sympathy. Yeah, it was incredibly petty of me to be mad at him for interrupting our conversation, but I didn’t really care. If he decided to ram his head against the wall that was Ridley’s Opinions, that was his fault.  
  
“-you know someone in need of help with their powers, don’t be afraid to call us,” Velocity finished, having replaced Clockblocker onstage. “It’s a heavy thing to carry by yourself, but having help makes it so much easier.”  
  
“More like ‘being a hero is so much easier’,” Birdie chirped.  
  
I sighed, knowing he was just egging Dean on at this point.  
  
“Well, what would you do if  _you_ had powers?” he asked.  
  
It was all I could do not to laugh.  
  
Ridley smirked and folded his hands behind his head. “I think I’d be an independent. Follow my own rules, do what I knew would help. Maybe get my own little group going. Find the biggest misfits in the world and just… go.”  
  
“So you’d go off and just follow your own rules?” Dean asked, his brown furrowed. When Ridley shrugged a ‘yes’, his frown deepened. “Heroes need accountability. Otherwise you’d just make another Slaughterhouse, and the last thing we all need is another Harbinger.”  
  
“Hey!” I snapped. “Don’t insult him. Just because he wants to do his own thing doesn’t make him one of  _them_.”  
  
Dean flinched back, but not from me. No, he was recoiling from the hornet now buzzing in Ridley’s hoodie, still hidden but doing its damnedest to make as much noise as possible. It took me a second to realize my anger had leaked out into my swarm, and then another to reel it back in.  
  
But it was already too late. As soon as I came back from my spacing out, Dean was gone. I glared impotently after him for a few moments, before just sinking back into my chair. My partner chuckled and nudged me with an elbow.  
  
“We’ve got to get you some anger management classes,” he joked halfheartedly.  
  
“Blame my dad, it comes from his side,” I told him.  
  
“Really? I’ve never seen him mad.” He folded his arms and tapped on his shoulder. “Huh. Yeah, never.”  
  
I shrugged, but my focus was no longer on him. It was still on Dean, watching through the melody of some flies as they tracked him all but running through the halls. I stopped them once he reached the bathroom, not wanting to even guess how much TMI would come from there.  
  
He stayed in there until the presentation concluded, regrettably without time for Q&A. That might’ve been interesting, especially if either of us had asked something. Instead, there was one last, thinly veiled recruitment pitch for any parahumans in the audience, and then we were let go to head back to class.  
  
Ridley and I split up without anything else meaningful being said. I managed to rope him into coming home under the pretense of helping me with homework, with the promise of not sending him home until ten.  
  
The day continued uneventfully, and never was I more thankful for boredom.

***

_Ridley_

_  
5:37 PM_  
  
Taylor always had the best ideas.  
  
“You ready?” she asked.  
  
I smirked. “Ready if you are.”  
  
“Alright…” She bit her lip. Despite it being her idea, her hand was unsteady. “Gonna put it in… now…”  
  
“It’s not gonna bite, Tay. Just shove it in there.”  
  
“Don’t rush me. Last time it felt… weird.”  
  
I sighed and flopped backwards on her bed. It was only a twin, unfortunately, so half my body hung off the edge. “You are making this way more difficult than it needs to be.”  
  
“Oh well, excuse me if I don’t know how this works,” she huffed. “The only other time this happened, it was an accident.”  
  
“And what, you’re worried that this time is going to be so much worse?” I asked. “Come on, before your dad gets home.”  
  
“If you’re worried about him catching us, you know I can-”  
  
“And now you’re just stalling.” I chuckled. Whether from her nervousness or the situation, I had no idea. I was just generally amused.  
  
“I’m not stalling,” she protested, “I’m just trying to figure out how this is going to go. It’s like a swallowing… thing… I don’t even know to describe it.”  
  
“There are things that are considered ‘big deals’. Behemoth re-exploding Chernobyl. Sentient kill-sats. Alexandria.” I pulled myself up to look at her. “This is not one of those.”  
  
“You’re right, but-”  
  
“Stalling.”  
  
“I am not-”  
  
 _“Stalling.”_  
  
“BIRDIE-”  
  
 _“STAAALLIIING.”_  
  
“I hate you.”  
  
“Hate you too. We doing this or not?”  
  
“We were, but Dad just pulled in the driveway.”  
  
I huffed and rolled my eyes. “Some fearless hero you are.”  
  
Taylor mirrored me almost perfectly, but had the added benefit of long hair covering her face to add to her pouting. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”  
  
“I love it when you talk like that.”  
  
She leaned forward and smacked my shoulder. “And now you’re channeling Clockblocker. Cut it out.”  
  
I raised my hands in surrender and hopped off the bed. I made sure to pull everything with me, not wanting to leave a mess on her covers. It was only courteous, after all.  
  
Taylor’s various bugs flew out the window she kept cracked open virtually all the time, except for the one she had been holding, which she held onto. It only took a second for me to return to normal, leaving no trace of oily goop anywhere in the room. I then did my best not to flinch, or get the heebie-jeebies, as my new Best Friend was flicked into my hair and found his/her way back into my hoodie.  
  
Just like that, and nobody would be the wiser that Skitter and Scourge were right next door to them.  
  
I was all but pushed downstairs by an exasperated Taylor, who would probably sulk at me until tomorrow. Come then, she would delight in watching me suffer from an ‘extra’ half-mile on our run.  
  
My life was nothing if not routine.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Hebert,” I called as soon as I saw him with a smile and a lazy wave.  
  
“Oh! Hey… Ridley…” he responded, very slowly. He smiled back, but it was tight.  
  
“Hi Dad,” Taylor said from behind me. She too received a less-than-enthusiastic greeting, something that normally never happened.  
  
We looked at one another as Mr. Hebert ran a hand through his hair and walked over to the couch, sitting down almost immediately. “C’mere, you two,” he said, waving us over. “I have to talk to you.”  
  
Taylor and I took seats, she right next to her father, and I on the chair next to the couch. Mr. Hebert was hunched over, staring into his clasped hands as if they had a script. My partner and I waited patiently for him to speak, aware of how out of the ordinary his current behavior was.  
  
Eventually, he raised his head to look at his daughter. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his face full of pain, and another when he spoke.  
  
“My little owl,” he whispered, “why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
 _... he knows.  
  
He fucking knows. How, HOW!?_  
  
I had never heard him use that name for Taylor before. But I knew from the look on her face that it almost never came out. It was the equivalent of my mother yelling ‘Ridley George Steiner’, maybe even worse than that.  
  
“T-tell you what, Dad?” Taylor stuttered.  
  
We were all on the same page here, there was no dodging it now. What was the point in lying? If she lied now, then told the truth later, wouldn’t that be even worse than coming clean now? Come to think of it, why was she so adamant that he not know? Was there something I was missing?  
  
Mr. Hebert started talking before I could get my thoughts in order. It was all I could do not to change, just so I could  _stop_ and think.  
  
“Ridley, go check the phone in the kitchen,” he told me, without looking either of us in the eye.  
  
I stood up, slightly confused, but I walked over to the phone. The only one in the house, actually. I was more confused when I saw it, then looked back over to the living room. “Isn’t this supposed to be plugged in at the bottom?”  
  
“It is,” Mr. Hebert answered, his voice wavering.  
  
It took me a moment to realize what that meant.  _Shit_.  
  
The urge was stronger, now. But I held back, out of hope to salvage this situation. I went and sat back down, still looking at Mr. Hebert, who was rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Why,” he croaked, “why didn’t either of you tell me my daughter had powers?”  
  
“Dad…” Taylor tried to speak, but he waved her off.  
  
“Just…” He took his head out of his hands to look at her. “Tell me why, Taylor. Tell me why you didn’t tell me, why I had to get a call from the  _PRT_ at  _work_ to find out?”  
  
This was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Or maybe several train wrecks, on an eight-way track, every one hauling nothing but jet fuel.  
  
“I… wanted to tell you…” Taylor whispered. She started to shrink under her father’s gaze, so quickly I wasn’t even sure what was happening.  
  
Mr. Hebert face shifted through several emotions in the span of two seconds. He took a deep breath and looked out the window. “That… I… you…”  
  
He shook his head, looked down. Slowly, he drew something out of his shirt pocket. It was a black rectangle, almost like an extremely slim wallet. He tossed it on the coffee table, where it beeped and came alive with several lights of varying colors.  
  
“You weren’t lying,” Mr. Hebert said flatly. His voice was hollow, now.  
  
“I would not lie to you, Mr. Hebert,” a familiar voice said. “But it was possible I was wrong. I am sorry that is not the case.”  
  
“Just… just come here already, damn you.”  
  
Taylor and I looked to one another, thinking the same thing anyone would.  
  
 _Fuck_.

***

There were a few minutes of silence before Mr. Hebert told Taylor, with an  _extreme_ edge to his voice, that she could get her costume on before Armsmaster arrived. She went upstairs wordlessly, which left me alone with someone who I was, suddenly, not very comfortable being alone with.  
  
I did my best not to squeak as he fixed me with an angry glare that should’ve, by all rights, killed me. “You knew.”  
  
“I did.” It was hard to force that out through the lump in my throat, but I managed.  
  
His eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t think I should know?”  
  
“I encouraged her to tell you,” I said truthfully. “Tay wanted to… wait until it was a good time.”  
  
“And did she tell you when  _that_ would be?” he snapped. “She seems to tell you everything else.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“‘No’, what?”  
  
I looked away. “She didn’t tell me when that was. I didn't bother her about it.”  
  
Mr. Hebert shook his head again. “Ridley… I like you. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for you bringing Taylor out of her shell. But…”  
  
His lips pursed at the ‘but’. “But right now, I am so… so… so  _angry_. The moment this is over, I’m taking you home. I have half a mind to stop you coming over here ever again.”  
  
I gulped. “M-mr. Hebert, please-”  
  
“ _I don’t want to hear it,_ ” he said through clenched teeth. “Your mother is going to hear about this, this thing right here,” he gestured with a finger to the room, “and whatever punishment she decides on will be fine with me. I’m not your parent, she is.”  
  
I was saved from any further scolding from Mr. Hebert by a knock on the front door. He was up and gone in a blink, letting Armsmaster in without a word. At the same time, Skitter crept down the stairs, her steps slow, measured, and extremely quiet. It was bizarre, seeing her without a hint of confidence in her posture. Almost  _scary_.  
  
“Skitter.” Armsmaster greeted her as soon as he saw her without so much as a nod.  
  
She said nothing in return. There was nothing to say at all, really. Everyone present knew what was going to happen. Taylor and I had heard this story a half-dozen times on PHO. Most of those were how the Protectorate 'saved' the Ward in question from a life of crime, or something like that, but it wasn't too hard to figure out what had  _really_  happened.  
  
I was ordered to fetch a chair from the dining room, which became my new seat as Armsmaster took the one next to the couch. Skitter was forced to sit next to her father, or else stand. She took the former option.  
  
Silence fell in the Hebert household, if only for a while.  
  
“Mr. Steiner does not need to be present for these proceedings,” Armsmaster declared. He was probably staring at me from beneath his visor, but obviously I couldn’t really tell with it in the way.  
  
“I want him here,” Mr. Hebert said. “He kept this from me just as much as Taylor did.”  
  
“Very well.” The hero reached behind his back and drew out a metal case, emblazoned with a stylized ‘A’. He popped it open and laid it gently on the table, allowing everyone to see the papers inside.  
  
“These are the registration papers for the Protectorate Wards program,” he said. “As you may or may not know, currently the Brockton Bay PRT handles the day-to-day affairs of the Wards, but rest assured the Protectorate proper has the final say in all of their activities.”  
  
“Dad, please-” Taylor started, then flinched and stopped when her father’s hand came just short of her face.  
  
“What do you need from me?” he asked. “Papers, signatures, is that all?”  
  
“Correct.” Armsmaster nodded. “When you present these to the PRT, they will also require their local notary to sign off on these. Once that is completed, your daughter will become an official Ward of the Protectorate.”  
  
“And I’m understanding correctly that gives the government say-so over what she does with her powers?”  
  
“A certain amount, yes. Ultimately, as her parent and guardian, the extent of her involvement with the program is decided by you. If you wish, her required hours will be spent entirely off the streets, training her power in contained environments.”  
  
Mr. Hebert sighed. “This almost sounds like a job.”  
  
“It is, of a sort. The Protectorate is a federally-funded organization, one that employs parahumans all across the country-”  
  
“I know what your f… uming organization is.”  
  
“Apologies.”  
  
Mr. Hebert sat back into the couch, once more taking a deep breath and wiping his face with his hands. “So, Taylor gets a salary?”  
  
“A trust fund,” the hero clarified. “A small amount of money to spend as she chooses, the rest is kept until she joins the majority.”  
  
“Don’t I get say in this at  _all_!?” Taylor shouted, startling everyone.  
  
Her father turned to her. His face was not one of mercy.  
  
“Taylor,” he began, “I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough. I’m sorry you couldn’t trust me enough to tell me you had a…”  
  
“Trigger event,” Armsmaster supplied.  
  
He grit his teeth. “But no more of this… sneaking out. Do you know how many nights that kept me awake, wondering if you would come back safe? Alive, even?”  
  
“Dad, I’m so-”  
  
“No, no more.” Mr. Hebert stood up, glaring down at the Ward papers. “I can’t help you with this, Taylor. I’m so sorry for that. But there are people who can, and as your father, I can’t ignore that in good conscience.”  
  
Armsmaster stood as well, sensing that things were wrapping up. “If you require any further assistance, Mr. Hebert…”  
  
“You can go,” he hissed. “You’ve done enough.”  
  
“Very well. Have a pleasant night.”  
  
The Protectorate hero made his way to the door, but stopped as he opened it to call back over his shoulder. “I recommend you inform your parents as well, Scourge.”  
  
I froze. Mr. Hebert whirled about, looking at me like I’d struck him.

***

_7:40 PM_  
  
I ended up walking home. My thoughts were more than enough company, and were far nicer that Mr. Hebert was inclined to be at the moment.  
  
I was officially banned from the Hebert household until further notice. That sucked.  
  
I was not allowed to go near Taylor outside of school. That blew.  
  
It was an all but certain thing that I was walking home to another ‘recruitment’ trap. That would likely fuck me.  
  
So, all in all, it was a whore of a day.  
  
Mentally I thanked my father for the first time in at least several months. I doubted that I’d have been capable of coming up with something poetic enough in any reasonable amount of time.  
  
Also for the first time in months, I didn’t bother to run through the steps needed to get into the apartment. I just stood in front of the door and banged on it, waiting for my mother to come open it.  
  
She did so in record time. “Wheah have you been!?” she all but shrieked.  
  
I stopped in the kitchen and pondered that for a moment.  _Hanging out with Taylor? Getting yelled at by a better father than mine? Being fucked over by the so-called hero? Wondering how much of my former sedentary life is now completely overturned in the ever-encroaching face of parahuman reality?_  
  
“Getting fucked by wondering Taylor,” I answered.  
  
I left my mother alone and went to my room. My bag was dropped lifelessly next to the door. Not a full second later and my head hit my pillow, and I did my best to will myself into a coma.  
  
 _...Wait._


	20. Taint 3.5

_April 12, 2011  
Brockton Bay  
4:04 AM_

_Taylor_

Dad hadn’t grounded me, for whatever reason. Maybe he felt that forcing me into the Wards was punishment enough. Maybe he blamed himself for everything that was happening. Maybe he just forgot.  
  
I didn’t care. He was trying to tell me… no, that wasn’t exactly true. He was letting  _other people_ tell me how to use my powers.  _He doesn’t even have the guts to step up and-_  
  
I took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts down.  
  
I hadn’t been upset last night. It was probably just the sheer shock of what was happening, and the fact that Dad had yelled at me for the first time in… years. The gravity of the whole situation hadn’t struck me until I had gone to bed, and it kept me up for quite a while.  
  
Then I woke up, and was struck by the epiphany that my dad was handing me off to someone else.  
  
‘Rage’ had been too weak a word to describe what I had felt. Was feeling. This was Emma all over again. Worse, because it wasn’t a friend I had lost touch with. It was my own father, failing to take responsibility for his failure. Wasn’t that just  _great_?  
  
Maybe it said something that my first action had been to duck out and head over to Ridley’s house. Did I trust him more than Dad? Even in my anger I couldn’t immediately say ‘yes’... but it hadn’t been an instant ‘no’, either. Maybe it was better to say that I trusted him more at this moment, when he hadn’t said or spilled anything until his hand was forced. And by forced, I meant grabbed, thrown down on the table, and pinned there with a halberd.  
  
Metaphorically.  
  
I wasn’t angry, not with him. The hornet I had instructed to remain in his hoodie may have buzzed loudly enough to give that impression, though. While my partner jerked to wakefulness and took his time drowsily creeping outside, I took the time to run over my mental list once more.  
  
There were two things I wanted to do, before it was too late. The first was actually finishing the experiment I had tried to perform last night. It was stupid, but I was hoping to discover some interaction between my power and Ridley’s. There wasn’t anything explicit that I was hoping for, beyond something useful enough that the Protectorate couldn’t afford to keep Skitter separate from Scourge.  
  
It was asking for a lot, but then so was expecting me to fit in with the Wards.  
  
The second thing… well. I’d get to it when I got to it. The subtle itching sensation on my arm wouldn’t let me forget so easily.  
  
Scourge emerged from his apartment, slumped over slightly but showing no other indicators of how he was feeling. I briefly wished that my powers allowed me something as useful as the ability to hide my emotions, it would've come in handy  _many_  times. Those thoughts were pushed aside as he came up to me and spoke, his voice as flat as his face.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “Your Dad won’t be happy if he finds out.”  
  
“He’s already unhappy,” I shrugged. “What’s little more?”  
  
He looked over his shoulder. “You’ve doomed us both, if we’re caught together.”  
  
“By who?” I asked. “Who else can see us, that can do anything about it?”  
  
He shifted in place, making a point not to look me in the eyes. Well, the lenses. “Nobody, I guess.”  
  
“Right. Nobody can stop us.” I held up my hand and let a few bugs fly into my open palm. “So let’s do this.”  
  
“Of course,” Scourge chuckled mirthlessly. “You only want me for my body.”  
  
I smiled despite the seriousness of the situation. If this didn’t work, I was going to miss his wicked sense of humor. I figured that I might as well enjoy it while it lasted.  
  
Scourge held up his hand and gathered a flower-like bulb of oil in it. For the first test, I sent a fly buzzing into the bulb. It swallowed my singer, and at the same time, it vanished from my choir. My partner stared ahead blankly, his fingers occasionally twitching around the bulb.  
  
“What exactly am I doing?” he asked, staring at the bulb. “Your bug… huh. Your bug just kinda went to sleep.”  
  
That wasn’t quite what I expected, but it did explain why I lost the song from my bugs the first time they had been swallowed by Ridley’s oily body. “Can you wake it up?”  
  
The bulb pulsed a few times, presumably as it poked and prodded the bug inside. “Nope, it’s out cold. Almost seems like it’s dead.”  
  
“But we know if we take it out, it wakes up,” I mused. “Can you… do anything with it?”  
  
“I… maybe?” Ridley eyes blinked and shifted slightly as he examined something visible only to him. “I haven’t really tried to-oh, wow, didn’t know what that did.”  
  
He descended into muttering from there, entirely to himself. The bulb of gunk in his hand began to shift and move, a lot like his skin. Every now and then, a series of notes flickered in and out, leaving me wondering what exactly he was doing. A dull croaking somewhere in the choir was  _happy, excited_.  
  
After a few moments, he held the bulb out at arm’s length. “Alright, I think I’ve got something. Ready?”  
  
Words from last night echoed in my head. “Ready when you are.”  
  
He tipped his hand over, and I watched the birth of horror.  
  
The mass of oil-covered bug burst open, letting its contents out into the world. At first it was just a shapeless blob, but as I watched, it started to take shape. It sprouted stalks which became legs, ovals which thinned out and became vein-ridden wings. A head and abdomen bubbled out from it’s center, taking the shape of the fly beneath them but lacking any detailed features. On either side were two large, white orbs that were its new eyes.  
  
It started falling just as its shape finalized. I sent the command for it to hover, and immediately regretted the hand-sander-like droning that filled the air. But that was required, apparently, to keep a mutant fly the size of a baseball airborne.  
  
“Holy…” Scourge laughed. “Skitter, that is freaking  _amazing_.”  
  
“It’s…  _disgusting_ ,” I said, letting the fly touch down.  
  
“It’s useful though, isn't it?”  
  
I shook my head slowly. “Yes… yes it is.”  
  
“Cool. Hey, grab my little buddy.”  
  
He meant the hornet I had had cling to him yesterday. It was already in my hand, but the tone of his voice had me worried. This was amazing, yes, but at the same time it was kind of scary. He was acting like we were playing with a chemistry set, instead of parahuman powers. Nevertheless, I decided to indulge him this once. It would, hopefully, make what came next a little easier.  
  
Scourge drew his hands down his arms several times, scraping off and building up a mass of oil the size of a basketball. With only a second’s hesitation, I sent his hornet buzzing into the pool of what was quickly becoming nightmare fuel.  
  
“It’s like hooking up a puppet,” he explained as his hands danced over the goop. “Except all the strings are being pulled from the inside. I think da Vinci had an idea for something like this.”  
  
“So… the bug is pulling the ‘strings?” I asked. “How am I telling it what to do, then, if it’s in the middle of all that?”  
  
“Probably ‘cause your power still thinks it’s me when I’m hooking it up.” He held the mass with one hand, looking it over. “I can see the strings when I let them go. They went to you pretty much immediately.”  
  
“These aren’t real strings, right?”  
  
“I… don’t think so. Probably just how my power lets me see it. Ready?”  
  
His words from last night rang in my head. “Ready whenever you are.”  
  
“Fly, my pretty,” he all but giggled, heaving the giant ball of himself into the air.  
  
Much like the bug before it, the ball began to shape itself the moment it left Scourge’s hands. It was faster this time, sprouting legs with just a hint of joint detail, to mimic the normal ones. The abnormal white eyes appeared almost instantly, growing and taking their proper shape.  
  
But changes began happening, ones that I was left to wonder the intentionality of. 'Mutations' might have been a better word. Four wigs sprouted instead of two, the extra, slightly smaller pair positioned behind the normal ones. This forced the abdomen of the entire bug larger, slightly but noticeably. The antenna swept back instead of forward, looking more like horns. And as my singer shook off the last bits of loose gunk from its… puppet, two additional stingers flicked out on either side the normal one, making a very distinct trident-like shape.  
  
Scourge was cackling madly. “Oh man, I always wanted to play mad scientist!”  
  
His hands rubbed together as I experimented with the mutant hornet, flying it around, letting it walk on the ground, and testing the flexibility of the whole thing. I was as amazed as he was, but with a lot more dread in the mix. It was, I was convinced, a perfectly normal reaction to a perfectly normal, corgi-sized bug. That had no problem picking up a pair of bricks I found laying around in the yard. And could've probably put its stinger through someone’s arm.  
  
You know, standard hero stuff.  
  
I had the…  _my_ giant hornet buzz out of my partner’s grip, as he grabbed it out of the air and swung it around like a pet, laughing the whole time. He immediately whined as it settled on his roof, far out of reach.  
  
“Spoilsport,” he said. “So, what’s next?”  
  
Next… I thought. I wasn’t looking forward to this. I cleared my throat and looked directly at Ridley, trying to get him to tighten up. “Ridley.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I…”  _Come on, Taylor. Just say it._  “I need you to do something for me.”  
  
“Anyth… wait, are you okay?” His head tilted just a bit in concern. When he took a step forward, I held up a hand to stop him. He backed off without protest, but I was sure that he was confused. Maybe even hurt, a little, but I couldn’t read anything from those blank white eyes.  
  
My weavers had opened up a small patch on the left arm of my suit last night, with just the barest hints of cutting. It had been held shut with a safety pin, to keep out the chill of the early morning air. But now I removed that pin, reopening the golf-ball-sized hole in my costume.  
  
The black eye just below it blinked and flicked its gaze around, so slow it seemed  _bored_.  
  
Ridley himself blinked as the eye strained to look at him, tugging under my skin ever so slightly. He took a cautious step forward, then another when I didn’t push him away. When I waved him closer, he came up next to me and took my arm, holding me like I was made of glass, and he was not Scourge, but Shatterbird.  
  
Neither of us made so much as a peep for several long, long moments.  
  
“T… Taylor,” he croaked. “What happened to you?”  
  
“You did,” I replied, trying and failing to keep my voice level. “That night, the first time we went out. When… when you…”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” He pulled his eyes away from the one on my arm to meet the ones hidden behind my mask. “I… I didn’t know I did this. I’m so sorry, Tay, I never meant to hurt you-”  
  
“You didn’t hurt me,” I snapped, looking away from him. “I just… thought it was fair. It was only right, after I got you… after what happened, I had to pay for it somehow.”  
  
Scourge flinched back like he’d been stung by our monster hornet. He let go of my arm, but still stared at the eye, twitching occasionally.  
  
“I didn’t tell you because of that,” I continued. “But I guess secrets get out no matter what. You deserved to hear it from me.”  
  
Ridley slowly straightened up, but his fingers kept fidgeting. “So… you don’t want me to take it back?” he asked quietly.  
  
I shook my head. “No. I just wanted to tell you it was there.” When he finally ripped his eyes from the one on my arm, I pinned the hole back up. “If we make it through this...”  
  
“Get through what?” he asked. “Your dad hating my guts, because I trusted you over him? You switching schools, because Wards can’t go to Winslow? Never seein…”  
  
He froze mid-sentence, before I had a chance to cut him off myself. His impossibly white eyes expanded just a bit, giving his otherwise expressionless face a look of dawning horror. It was made all the worse when his restless inky skin folded back to leave his normal self exposed, looking at me with tears in his eyes.  
  
“Taylor,” he choked out. “Please don’t leave me.”  
  
Mentally, I was recoiling from the sight in front of me. I had no idea what I had said to reduce Ridley from his normal self to the near-blubbering sop that had taken his place. But my mind was already racing, trying to figure out how to stop the sudden dirge-like tune coming from his lips.  
  
Physically, I managed to only take a step back, so small I was pretty sure he didn’t notice. It was hard not to, but I forced myself to make it into a slow turn towards him.  
  
“I’m not leaving you,” I told him. The next bit was harder, as I had to explain a plan that was only just taking shape.  
  
“Here’s what we’re going to do…”

***

_2:32 PM_  
  
Dad pulled up outside Winslow mere minutes after school was let out. I climbed into the truck without a word from either of us, and he took off at a pace just slightly faster than the posted speed limit.  
  
The PRT HQ wasn’t too much farther away than home, so it would take less than half an hour to get there. Maybe even fifteen minutes, with how Dad was driving. That left me with scant minutes left to freely use my powers, before someone else clamped down on them like it was their God-given right.  
  
I wondered what would happen to my armor, which was currently hidden under my clothes. I had been sweating most of the day, using a sweater to hide the obvious chestplate, and baggy pants to do the same for my legs. Hope still held out for me getting to keep it, but it was unlikely considering Shadow Stalker held the current ‘anti-hero’ title. Maybe I‘d get away with just a flashy paint job.  
  
As we came a stop at a red light, Dad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. It was the most amount of emotion he’d shown all day.  
  
“Taylor.”  
  
I looked at him. He didn’t look at me.  
  
“This will be good for you.”  
  
“No, it won’t,” I said.  
  
“It will,” he asserted. “I’m going to make sure of it.”  
  
“High school was supposed to be good for me,” I reminded him. “Do you even  _know_ where I had my trigger?”  
  
His response was quick, and still delivered without him even glancing at me. “No, because you refused to tell me.”  
  
That… shut me up pretty quickly.  
  
We were cycling back into the same argument we had last night. Dad didn't want to hear anything I had to say, convinced he was in the right. He didn't stop to think that maybe, just maybe, the reaction he was having was the exact reason I  _hadn't_ told him about my powers earlier.  
  
“I'm going to do better from now on, I promise,” Dad said quietly, but firmly. “But you have to be honest with me. I need to know when there’s a problem, so I can help you. Can I trust you to do that?”  
  
I thought about that. I hadn't told Dad about the bullying, not since it started. I was  _still_ keeping that from him. Was it so crazy to think that, just maybe, things wouldn't have gotten so bad if I just  _talked_  to him?  
  
I kept my powers a secret too, and when he found out, his first action was to put me under the thumb of someone else. There wasn't an issue of trusting my dad here, not really. But if I couldn't trust the school to help me, even when I brought evidence to them, then how could I possibly trust the people in charge of them?  
  
It wasn't complicated. And now, thinking things through, neither was my answer.  
  
“You can trust me, Dad.”

***

_Ridley_   


I could only imagine how shifty I looked. A pasty white guy, with his hood up, lounging in an alleyway not five streets over from the PRT headquarters. Add to that a giant black ‘bag’ that occasionally blinked, and I would've been surprised if there weren't at least three dozen cameras trained on me.  
  
I hadn't been waiting long when Buddy shifted and beat his wings with all the noise of a belt sander. I allowed myself one calming breath before I stepped back out onto the sidewalk and set a light jogging pace, mentally readying myself to negotiate with one of the most hardline groups in the entire Bay.  
  
The key was to make it look like a complete accident, we had decided. Better to show up spontaneously, ready to register myself with the PRT, than risk incurring the wrath of a dockworker by asking to tag along. Specifically a dockworker who, regardless of consequences, seemed ready to put me in a cast.  
  
As I closed in on them, Mr. Hebert looked about ready to panic, seeing a massive black hornet rushing towards him followed by his current least favorite person. Taylor had a faint grimace on her face, one that been there all day.  
  
“Ridley.” She tipped her head. I didn’t blame her for how unenthused she sounded.  
  
“Taylor,” I replied, forcing a smile. “I see you’re looking to join the Wards.”  
  
“Not really. My dad wants me to, though.”  
  
“Well then, I might as well join-”  
  
“No,” Mr. Hebert said. “No, you won’t.  
  
“Please, Mr. Hebert,” I asked. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to help my friend.”  
  
“Please, Dad.” Taylor looked up at her father. “We’re partners. We should do this together.”  
  
To be fully honest, I expected him to say ‘no’. He was the parent, after all, and his mind had been made up. Parents didn’t change their minds very often, except when something they wanted was involved.  
  
That was what Phase 2 was for, obviously.  
  
Taylor’s dad glared at me as hard as he could. If it were possible, this might’ve been the second time he’d have killed me. It stung less this time, but only slightly.  
  
He glanced at his daughter, who had now locked gazes with me. Three blinks was the signal.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
Both of us looked at him in surprise, Taylor less so as she was ‘guided’ through the automatic doors and into PRT HQ. I took a moment longer than strictly necessary to stand stupidly on the sidewalk, before hurrying in after them.  
  
The Heberts were already halfway to the front desk, which was kind of impressive considering the sheer size of the main lobby. It was an incredibly spacious room, with a ceiling two storeys high. A U-shaped balcony ran along the second floor, giving a solid view down, but not so much up. The first floor held a number of desks and stations of varying shapes and sizes, but all of them seemed… off.  
  
At first glance, it wasn't a visitor-friendly setup at all. Everything was so spaced out, about as far away from any other setup as it could get. If ever there was a busy day, the lines from each would probably smash into and tangle each other up. Maybe that wasn't a realistic concern, because this was the PRT and not the Tax Collector's office, but it still struck me as odd.  
  
Then I realized that every single one was oriented to face  _outward_ in every direction. This may have been a public building, but it was one built to defend against an attack from just about any direction. Kind of ingenious, really.  
  
The main desk was circular in shape, placed directly in the middle of the lobby. A pair of PRT troopers were stationed there, and more were located at every doorway on the edges of the room. And sure enough, as I looked up, little nozzles that were definitely not the sprinkler systems were arrayed all over the ceiling.  
  
PRT HQ might as well have been a fortress. But I supposed that was the difference between the capes and normal people. We had to put on a show and have a giant rig out in the Bay. Everyone else made do with an office building, with anti-cape tech out the wazoo.  
  
I snapped out of my admiring stupor in time to catch up to the Heberts at the front desk. Four greeters worked behind the desk, all busy with their tasks but quickly taking notice when we entered.  
  
“Hi, welcome to the PRT,” the one nearest us said. She was by all definitions a bog-standard secretary, brunette hair in a bun, office dress, the works. She had a practiced smile that could only come from dealing with the weirdest Brockton Bay had to offer on a daily basis. “How can I help you?”  
  
Mr. Hebert took point. “I'm registering my daughter for the Wards,” he said, handing over the papers he had gotten from Armsmaster yesterday.  
  
“Alrighty then,” the secretary said with false cheer. “Let me just grab you… these…” She reached under her desk and grabbed a few more papers, placing them on the counter. “I'll just need you to fill out these as well, and then we can get you started.”  
  
Mr. Hebert took the papers and left the desk, heading back towards a small seating area. Next to the main entrance, there was a small section for guests. A small table, surrounded by two medium-sized couches and a single chair.   
Taylor took a moment to stare after him, then stepped up.  
  
"Do you have any papers for..." She glanced back at me. "Affiliates, I guess? Registering as an official cape, without signing up for the Wards?"  
  
"Certainly," the secretary said. "It's not too often we get capes like that, but we do have the forms. One second." She rummaged around under the desk for a bit, before pulling out a different set of papers that were thoroughly wrinkled. She hadn't been kidding about their lack of usage, apparently. We thanked the secretary, and went to sit down with Mr. Hebert.  
  
Taylor and I took a few moments to look of the affiliate papers, since she already knew what hers would be like. “I guess you still have to do what they tell you when you head out, but other than that they leave you alone,” she commented.  
  
“Works for me,” I muttered. “At least I won’t have to tell my mother. She wouldn’t have half the grace your Dad did.”  
  
She smiled just a bit. I wondered how much she’d be smiling in the days to come.  
  
The three of us took seats, with Taylor and her dad taking the couch, and I the chair. Mr. Hebert stiffly handed me a pen, which I thanked him for, and we all got to filling out our paperwork. Truly, it was the most riveting experience of my life.

***

_Taylor_

  
I hated paperwork. Everyone does, I wasn’t planning on winning some award just for thinking that.  
  
But there was a special place in my heart, I decided, for the Wards forms I was all but being forced into signing. Signing my name thirty times over, giving out personal information just as much, and pretty much opening myself up to the government. Any illusions I had about there being ‘exciting’ questions, like ‘What is your cape name’ or ‘What are your powers’, were dashed against the rocks.  
  
So instead of letting myself drown in the boredom of bureaucracy, I had my bugs start roaming through the building. Well, to them, it was more like spelunking. The foyer we were sitting in was pretty brightly lit, but the rest of the HQ was much dimmer. Some flies that I had sent to the second floor were buzzing about in dull, grey, faintly lit halls. Various office workers milled about, some working in slightly brighter cubicle rooms, others in their own private offices.  
  
I tagged and followed a pair of black-clad PRT troopers as they rode an elevator not up, but down. For a moment, I thought they were headed to some super-secret, no-public-eyes portion of the HQ, but it turned out they were only going to a small underground parking lot. Granted, it was a PRT-only lot, but it was still pretty mundane.  
  
That was the best word to describe what I was seeing. ‘Mundane’. Ordinary. Plain, even. This building was supposed to be home to one of the most powerful organizations in Brockton Bay, and besides the foam sprayers, there was little to indicate such.  
  
Where was all the excitement, I wondered? I knew that it couldn’t be action one-hundred percent of the time, like some ‘reality’ shows tried to portray it. But surely there was more to the PRT than just paperwork and office cubicles, printers and post-it notes?  
  
“Hey,” Ridley piped up from the other side of the Great Wall of Dad. “Do we have a team name?”  
  
I stared at him. “No? We never needed one, did we?”  
  
“‘Terrible Twosome’ it is, then.” He shrugged.  
  
“No, that sounds too villainous. How about… ‘The Twin Pillars’?”  
  
Ridley made a face. I think I saw it once before, right before he disappeared to the bathroom for half an hour. “Pass. ‘The Hive’.”  
  
“What is it with you and creepy names?” I sat back and thought for a moment. “Maybe ‘The Masterful’.”  
  
“Better.” He was grinning. “‘Masters of the Universe’.”  
  
Dad, of all people, was the one to snort in the closest thing to amusement I'd heard from him in a week. When I looked at him in surprise, he immediately snapped back to his former serious look, and motioned for me to keep working on my papers. “Figure it out later,” he said. Which was fair, there wasn’t a space on anything I had filled out that asked for any name but my own.  
  
 _Look at that. I haven’t even signed up yet, and already they’re coming down on me._  
  
My hand went back into motion. My mind went somewhere else, even as it kept putting down the same answers page after page. I followed an earwig that had been lurking in the ladies’ bathroom as it threw itself onto the pant leg of a passing trooper. They went right into the elevator, which started downwards once again. I was about to ignore them, when the elevator failed to stop at the garage.  
  
I blinked despite myself, reaching out and rechecking all of my bugs. Out of all the melodies I could hear, not a single one besides the earwig was below the underground garage.  
  
What was this trooper  _doing_?  
  
The earwig’s song changed as the elevator went further down, souring in a way I couldn’t really describe. There was something unnatural, something  _not_ me, telling it to flee. To be anywhere that wasn’t where it was. Tinkertech bug repellant, I guessed, which neatly explained the relative sparsity of singers in the building.  
  
The PRT trooper stepped out of the elevator and into a dim, stale corridor. They took a left and headed down quite a ways, passing a few doors that, even through a single bug's poor senses, were clearly  _not_  the same kind of doors in the rest of the building. They stopped at the end of the hallway, in front of a door that opened with hardly a whisper, and stepped forward in a very tiny room.   
  
They messed with something, and a loud buzzer rang out from behind the closed door. When it stopped, they stepped in, and a whole set of new pressures echoed through the air.  
  
It all settled into place, then. He was just going to the Wards, probably telling them about me. Maybe Ridley, too. I recognized almost everyone there, Aegis, Clockblocker, Kid Win, the entire team was waiting. Waiting for me. A smile tugged at my lips.  
  
 _They’re waiting for_ me _._  
  
Then something drifted in the air.  
  
I stopped for a moment, dumbstruck. I considered the possibility that the earwig was just out of tune. It was entirely possible, even though I had never known a song to be heard wrong. Different, maybe, but never wrong.  
  
A half-dozen other bugs were drawn down the elevator shaft, despite the insistence that they not. A few troopers taking the elevator gave them the opening to slip into the sub-basement, and through the doors to the Wards' area just as the trooper left.  
  
I smelled nervousness. I felt anticipation. I smelled  _Dean_.  
  
I was confused, at first. What is Dean doing here? Winslow doesn’t have any War-  
  
 _Anger fear panic tensehatesophia  
  
Sophia_  
  
SOPHIA  
  
HESS  
  
 _buzz_

***

_Ridley_

  
I froze.  
  
Looked at Taylor.  
  
She was calmly drawing off her backpack and searching inside it. It wasn’t her normal backpack, it was actually the giant fly I had made for her, that she had suggested we wear as fake bags. I had no idea why, but it seemed like a good idea. As long as the real bug was somewhere in the body, the puppet worked, so a book or two could easily fit inside.  
  
A mask, even easier.  
  
A swarm of bugs clung to her arm as she pulled it out, moving down her body and lining up along the seams of her clothing. If I hadn’t been looking straight at her, I might not have noticed the movement until her pants and sweater literally fell off, and her Skitter-wear was totally exposed.  
  
“Dad.”  
  
He glanced at her. “Taylor?”  
  
“Don’t finish the paperwork.”  
  
Mr. Hebert sat back. Surprise broke through his irritated expression, turning into shock when he noticed her mask in her grip. “Taylor, calm down. There's nothing to worry about, we've been over-”  
  
“This is  _not_ happening, Dad.” She stressed the ‘not’ as hard as possible without it breaking.  
  
He sat up straighter, trying to shore up his stance. “Yes, it is. I’m sorry that-”  
  
“Scourge.”  
  
Skitter all but threw her mask on. The time it took me to stand and take my first step towards the door was all the time needed for me to change. Both of our giant bugs came alive, filling the air with the sounds of power tools as her swarm began to form around us.  
  
Shouts from the PRT troopers came barely moments after we had sprung into motion. An alarm blared just as Taylor set foot through the front door. But by the time everyone had begun to fully react and realize what was happening, we were already gone.  
  
Cars blared their horns as Skitter and I sprinted across the street. Mr. Hebert’s truck was momentarily surrounded by a haze of wings and bodies, which then descended around us to shield us from sight.  
  
“What went wrong?” I shouted over the droning of Skitter’s bugs.  
  
“Hess...” She hissed. “Hess is fucking Ward! And so is Dean!”  
  
It took me a moment to place the name. Then, everything clicked into place.  
  
 _Dean. Dean figured out we were capes._  
  
People we might’ve otherwise gone around were simply plowed through, letting loose yelps, bellows, and even screams as we ran. Skitter was in front, guiding us as always. Every so often, she would touch a few bugs to my skin, letting me create more puppets for them. But one thing I didn’t have in common with her was her ability to multitask. I might as well have been trying to knit a sweater with my feet.  
  
 _Dean told Armsmaster, who told Mr. Hebert. That means he’s a Ward, or in the PRT._  
  
More horns, more noises from the crowd. For once, I was glad that I lived in a city. It would keep the PRT forces held back as they tried to move through the bustling streets. My father had once said, ‘when seconds matter, the police are minutes away’. It was funny because it was true, or so I had thought. Right now, I wasn’t willing to place bets, not even on myself.  
  
 _They had to go around us, because we would never accept being on the same team as Hess._  
  
I had no idea where we were going. ‘Anywhere but here’ was all well and good, but what was the  _plan_? Taylor always had one, so I didn’t doubt we had a destination, but at the moment I was totally in the dark. And right now, that wasn't exactly a good thing.  
  
 _Hess, who never got justice. She WAS the justice._  
  
Skitter held out an arm, suddenly bringing us to a stop. Our obscuring bug-screen thinned out, letting me see around us for the first time in about five minutes. We were still in the middle of the city, still surrounded by panicked pedestrians, which left me confused.  
  
“We’re being followed,” Skitter said. “Four people, two animals. Not the PRT. They’re on the rooftops.”  
  
There was only one group that fit that particular description. “Are we fighting them?”  
  
“If we have to.”  
  
The Hellhounds could move faster than either of us. Last I checked Hellhound had three monsters at her beck and call, but complaining about a weakened enemy was something I had long learned not to do.  
  
I used the precious seconds we had before the Undersiders arrived to fashion almost five whole puppets. They were rushed, ramshackle things, and I was pretty sure that only ten legs worked between the lot, but any more force I could give Skitter was more force on our side.  
  
I was finishing up the fifth when the two massive, mutant dogs sized up to dump trucks crashed to the street in front of us, snarling with teeth no animal should ever be allowed to have. Tattletale jumped off her dog, leaving a maskless Hellhound to glare down balefully at us, and landed gracefully just two steps in front of Skitter.  
  
She smiled at us, just a tad too widely, clearly not having walked away from Lung unscathed. The right side of her face was covered in wrinkled skin, giving her eye a permanent wince. Her smile too, which at first glance might have been forced that wide, was due to the edge of her mouth being burned back and open, exposing her pearly whites regardless of her expression.  
  
“Hello,” she said. “We're in the business of escaping from heroes. Can we interest you in a demo?”  
  
Skitter and I looked at one another.


	21. Taint 3.6

_April 12, 2011_  
Brockton Bay  
4:09 PM 

_Ridley_

An old brick factory, situated just north of downtown Brockton Bay, served as the Undersider’s lair. It was hidden in plain sight, which was a mixed blessing. On one hand, nobody thought much of several capes ducking into an ‘abandoned’ building. But on the other, we were pretty much caught between three territories.  
  
The ABB and PRT were more than content to ignore the factory, as apparently they lacked either the manpower or funds to properly utilize it. But the Merchants had proved to be just as much of an infestation there as they were anywhere else. According to Tattletale, Hellhound had had to drive them out more than once.  
  
And now I was trying to adjust to her preferred name, ‘Bitch’. If only to avoid having her bite it off. Maybe she’d have one of her dogs do it, what did I know?  
  
Skitter… Taylor and I were currently hanging out next to the stairs up to the second level. I was busying myself with memorizing the current grains of dirt at my feet, as I sat on top a pile of dusty bricks. My partner proving herself slightly disruptive, what with her constant pacing back and forth.  
  
“Tay,” I muttered, “you’re going to wear a rut in the floor.”  
  
“So?” She stopped for a second to snap at me, before continuing her meandering. “Ugh, what are we even  _doing_ here?”  
  
“Hiding from the PRT. And we’re doing  _that_ because they manipulated your Dad into signing you onto the Wards.”  
  
“Because they knew about Hess.”  
  
I shrugged. “You heard Tattletale. Most likely they had no idea, they just didn’t want you slipping out of their grip.”  
  
“But they’re the  _good guys_!” she protested, grabbing at her hair. “They’re not supposed to… to press-gang people! That’s what the ABB do!”  
  
“You’re right,” I told her. “So what does that mean for us?”  
  
Taylor just put her face in her hands and made a noise not unlike a dying bear. The bug puppets we had made were strewn around the floor, and took to mimicking her as best they could.  
  
“If you don’t cut that out, someone’s going to come looking in here.”  
  
We both looked over to the stairs. Grue was coming down, still in full costume. It was probably for the best, considering we didn’t plan on staying long. No reason to get comfy with people we’d be punching in the face in a week or two, and the same went for them in regards to us.  
  
“Grue.” I tipped my head.  
  
“Scourge.”  
  
Taylor took a moment to calm herself, and to turn off the living grinders. Grue took a seat on a pile of rubble opposite me as we waited for her to do so. Once the noise had vanished entirely, she fixed him with a stare.  
  
“What’s the deal, here?” she asked. Her voice was still shaky, but Skitter seemed to be back in the driver’s seat.  
  
The villain shrugged and leaned back slightly. “Dunno. That depends on you two. We’ve,” he motioned to the ceiling, “agreed that you can stay the night, regardless of what might come tomorrow.”  
  
“I’m sensing an offer here,” I said.  
  
Grue tipped his head. “Option one, you guys leave. The PRT is probably looking for you now, if only because you scared the crap out of them. As I said, you can stay the night, wait till the heat dies down. Then you go home, or whatever. Not my business.”  
  
I looked to Skitter. “You told your Dad not to finish the paperwork, right?”  
  
“Yeah.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I… don’t know if he listened, or not.”  
  
“Ward recruitment?” Grue asked. Skitter nodded. “Not much you can do if he went ahead with that. And before you say anything, no, we can’t and won’t help you if that’s the case. That’s way too much heat that’ll come down on us.”  
  
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Skitter snapped. “What’s your second option?”  
  
“You stay with us,” came a different voice.  
  
We all looked back over to the stairs. The voice rang in my head, but the girl who came down wasn’t dressed like Tattletale. She was-

***

_Bright smile_

_Green eyes_

_A laugh_

***

I lost my balance. Fell to the ground.

“M… m… m…” I stuttered, whispered, dumbstruck. There’s no way.

_No way. No._

“M-ma-”

“No, sorry.” The girl smiled at me. I couldn’t tell if it was kindness or pity.

“Scourge?” Skitter asked from behind me. Grue shifted in his seat, but said nothing.

Tattletale walked up to me. I only realized I was kneeling when she held out a hand to me. “Name’s Lisa.”

“Dammit, Lisa,” Grue grumbled. He drummed his fingers on his leg, then reached up and pulled off his own mask. “Full disclosure, then. I’m Brian.”

I blinked and pushed back the sudden daze in my head. Lisa grabbed my half-extended hand and pulled me to my feet, keeping that uncanny valley smile the whole time.

“Ridley,” I muttered, shifting back.

Lisa flinched half a step back, something I didn’t need Scourge’s clarity to notice. But she transitioned it into a smooth pivot, heading back up the stairs and gesturing for all of us to follow. It occurred to me that Skitter hadn’t unmasked, but I didn’t bring any attention to it. As she realized the same and grudgingly introduced herself to Brian, I went up the stairs after Lisa.

I got my first good look at the Undersider’s lair. The first room was something out of a mansion, with a high ceiling, expensive-looking furniture all over the place, and an enormous TV mounted on the far wall. It was hooked up to plenty of media players and game consoles, and currently being used by someone who I guessed was Regent.

“That’s Alec,” Lisa said, pointing to the mop of black hair that just barely stuck up above the couch cushion. ‘Alec’ belched in greeting and continued playing his shooter, to which his teammate shook her head. “Yes, really.”

“Are you a mind reader?” I asked.

“Close,” she smirked. “I’m very good at guessing.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Alec called out, “thinking what she wants lets her in!”

Lisa rolled her eyes

_Rolled her eyes_

_Snort snicker_

and walked over to him, delivering a swat on top of his head. It was at just the right moment too, as Alec’s character was swiftly executed by a sniper round through its skull.

“Nooo!” he cried. “I had a perfect KDA this match, too!”

Lisa shrugged. “Oh well. It’s just a game, don’t lose your head over it.”

Alec grumbled as the TV counted down his respawn timer. I hesitantly made my way over to one of the open couches and plopped down, unsure of what to do at the moment.

Brian and Taylor came up the stairs, talking quietly between themselves. Taylor looked like someone had just burned her mother’s sweater in front of her, while Brian was simply stone-faced. Both came over to the couches, sitting down across from me while Lisa slinked over and all but fell next to me.

“So…” she drawled. “Made your decision, or do you need some time?”

Tay didn’t say anything right away. Her eyes gazed blankly at the table in front of her, occasionally darting this way and that. She spared a glance at me once, but other than that didn’t look directly at any of us.

What would have been an uncomfortable silence was kept as uncomfortable noise, as Alec continued his digital slaughter.

“They’re offering us positions on their team.” Taylor muttered.

“We’re already a team,” I reminded her.

“We’re just two.”

“We fought Lung and won.”

“As six. More, if you count Hell… Bitch’s dogs.”

“Then we already have a legion.”

Taylor looked up at me. “The heroes betrayed us.”

“We were never allied with them.” When she narrowed her eyes, I elaborated. “‘The enemy of my enemy, is my enemy’s enemy’. We were only bodies for them, the same way they were just holding facilities for us.”

“But… but we’re heroes.”

“By that logic, we betrayed ourselves.”

She groaned and once again performed the legendary double-facepalm. Lisa giggled lightly beside me, while Brian and Alec remained impassive.

“Maybe I can speed things along,” Lisa said, leaning forward. “May I?”

I shrugged and motioned to Taylor, who waved the go-ahead.

“The way I see it,” she began, “you’re basically facing two… let’s say three paths. For the sake of argument.”

She held up a finger. “The least pleasant option is to just never use your powers again. Nobody can control them but you, so it’s always your choice. Now this never works out, because parahumans who’ve tried all let loose one day, or literally go insane.”

Another finger. “Your second choice is to go back to the PRT. They probably all but legally own you bo… no, just you?” She motioned to Taylor, who nodded. “Alright, so they pretty much own you.

“Ridley, you’re the wild card there. The PRT won’t let Scourge anywhere near their Wards. And no, trust me, even if you’re out patrolling, the rule will be to bring you in.”

“And the third option is to join you,” I interrupted her as a third finger came up.

“Aren’t you smart,” she grinned. Maybe just smiled, I couldn’t tell with the way her mouth moved. “I’ll be honest with you, we’re your most dangerous option. We’re all total unknowns to each other, here. I mean that both as capes, and as people.”

She bit her lip, then added, “And now, thinking about it? I’d place my bets on you two fighting your way out, if it had to happen.”

Despite the situation, I had to grin at Taylor. “We are pretty good, aren’t we?”

She just put her head back in her hands and shook it.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Brian reminded us. “But you do have to have an answer by morning.”

“We will,” Taylor sighed. “One way or another.”

With that, he and Lisa left us alone. All three of us.

Alec swore as he died again.

***

_7:22 PM_

_Taylor_

I found myself sitting alone in the living room for hours on end. Brian had delivered pizza for the lot of us only five minutes ago, then left. ‘Personal reasons’, he had said. Alec had eaten and immediately gone to bed, which I was assured was normal. Bitch wasn’t due back for a while, yet.

Ridley… was drifting around.

He’d had this...  _look_ on his face, from the first moment he saw Lisa. Like a ghost had come back to haunt him. Maybe it had, if he blamed himself for her injuries. He’d never shown pity for any criminal before, which left me wondering what was different here.

I glanced over to the open kitchen, where Ridley was currently rummaging around for something. Most of the cupboards seemed to be empty, which gave the impression that the box of pizza was the rule, not the exception.

He made a noise of satisfaction as he opened the dishwasher, and pulled out a few clean plates. A slice of cheese pizza went on each, and he brought them over to the living room. I didn’t say anything when he held one out, nor when he set it down on the cushion next to me.

“Eat.” He pointed at the slice.

“Not hungry.”

Ridley sighed quietly and dug into his pizza. I watched him plow the first few bites without stopping, chowing down like it would be his last meal. Which was the norm, for him.

“...how can you do that?” I asked quietly. My partner paused mid-bite, looking at me with a quizzical expression. “You’re acting like there’s nothing wrong. Like… we aren’t holed up in someone else’s home, just because they felt like it.”

Ridley again heaved a great sigh and set his plate aside. “You worried about when our grace period is over?”

“Of course I’m worried!” I yelled. My chest felt like a hundred pounds of lead were suddenly pressing down on it. “I… what’s Dad… we just… what am I going to do?”

“We just had this conversation,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “And… honestly, I haven’t been thinking about it all that much.”

I scoffed. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have to worry about your mom knowing what’s going on. You haven’t even thought about telling her about your powers, have you?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I’ve said it before. I wouldn’t tell her what I had for lunch, if she wasn’t the one making it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, that’s great. Just great for you. But that also means she isn’t forcing you to join the Wards.”

“Do you even know that, at this point?” he asked. “You told your dad not to sign the papers, but you never stuck around to make sure he didn’t.”

“You make it sound like I should’ve held a gun to his head.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did, but I still felt like holding it against him. “Well, what should I do now, then? It’s your advice that got us into this mess.”

Ridley stared at me for a moment, the gears in his head turning. I could tell he wanted to snap at me, like I was at him, but he held himself back. The air around him was full of sickly tunes, only adding to the queasiness I already felt.

“Talk to your dad,” he said. “Tell him why you can’t join the Wards. If he doesn’t listen…”

I stared at him for a moment. Then I left to find a phone, if only to get away from the nauseating song that my bugs wouldn’t shut up about.

Lisa was the only Undersider both present and awake at the moment, so I went to her room. I knocked on her door, which was closed tight, but hardly two seconds passed before she popped it open and greeted me with a deformed smile.

“Thought you’d be by later tonight,” she said, stepping aside to allow me in.

Lisa’s room was… nice, and  _very_ plain. Her bed was perfectly made with expensive-looking sheets, all in shades of white. The desk setup that consumed most of the room was covered in monitors, file organizers, and various other things that made it look like it belonged in an office more than a bedroom. A number of corkboards hung up on the walls, with maps and pictures of various people plastered all over them. There were absolutely zero personal decorations here, everything was function-oriented.

“So.” Lisa moved behind her desk and sat down, resting her head on top of her interlaced fingers. “What can I help you with?”

“I need to… I need a phone.” I said, trying to ignore the new lump in my throat.

Lisa’ smile kept straight as a razor as her song soured, but she grabbed a flip phone out of her desk and tossed it to me without asking any questions. “Bring it back when you’re done with it.”

I stood to leave… but didn’t. I looked down at her, hesitating, then figured there wasn’t much she could do to make my situation any worse.

“Can you… help me?” I asked. “I have to call my Dad and… I don’t know what to say.”

She tilted her head. Her eyes darted over me, like they could see right through my skin to find every thought that hid beneath them. It was unsettlingly similar to what Mom did, what seemed so long ago. I once told a lie about snacking before dinner, but she knew. There was nothing to prove it, but maybe I was all the evidence she’d needed.

I felt the same way with Lisa, right now.

“This is about the Wards, then,” she guessed. Her smile stretched when I nodded. “You’re hoping I can convince your dad to cancel your recruitment?”

I opened my mouth-

“No, you want to do it yourself.”

-and closed it.

“It  _would_ be better coming from you,” she continued, rolling on as if I wasn’t present. “But what to say… is there any reason you don’t want to join?”

“Aren’t you just going to guess?” I asked, somewhat annoyed.

Lisa tapped her temple. “Makes things easier for me if you just say it. Think of it as saving gas by already knowing a route’s bad.”

I bit my lip. “I…  _we_ were bullied by a Ward. And another one scouted us out, after I used my powers to get her back.”

Realization slammed into me. “Holy shit, I stung a Ward.”

“Probably not enough to bar you from entry,” Lisa informed me, “but enough that things would be… tense. It’s still a legiti-no, no it’s not.”

She raised her hands as I sent her a glare. “It’s  _not_.”

“Alright, message received.” Lisa motioned to the cell phone. “Look, why don’t we get this over with. Call your dad and I’ll throw it on speaker.”

With just the slightest shaking of my hands, I punched in my home number and handed the phone to Lisa. She shot me a pitying look, then hit the speaker button and set the phone down on her desk.

The phone didn’t ring for too long before it clicked, and Dad’s voice croaked over the line. “H-hello?”

“It’s me,” I said. I was proud of myself for not letting my voice crack.

“Taylor,” Dad whispered breathlessly. “Where are you, honey? I’ll come pick you up, right now.”

“Dad…” I had to force the words out, at this point. “Did… did you sign all the Wards papers?”

There was a brief, but noticeable silence on the other end.

“Taylor…” he said quietly. “Come home. Please. Just come home, we can talk about that as soon as you’re safe.”

“He’s holding on to them,” Lisa muttered. “I’ll bet they’re signed, but he hasn’t submitted them yet.”

I didn’t want to believe her. “Dad. Tell me the papers aren’t signed.”

“Taylor, please. Come home. I need to know you’re alright.”

“He’s not lying. He’s in a lot of pain, right now, knowing you’re somewhere that isn’t home.” Lisa slowly extended a hand, hovering a finger over the ‘Hang up’ button. “Tell him about your bullies.”

“Dad.” I said one more time. “I can’t go to the Wards.”

He coughed on the other end of the line, probably choking up as much as I was. “Why not?”

“They’re the ones bullying me,” I told him. “All these years… it’s been them.”

Silence came from the other end.

Lisa looked at me, but my eyes were glued to the phone screen, watching the seconds tick by. Three, then five, then ten…

Then fifteen.

Finally… “We’ll get that straightened out.”

“Dad, you can’t just-”

“I will, Taylor. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe, I promise.”

“I won’t be safe in the Wards!” I shouted. “That’s my point! They kept Sophia from being punished, they’ll do it again!”

“We’ll talk to them.” Dad’s voice was just a few decibels lower than mine. “We just have to talk to the right people.”

And that was that. I knew there was no solving this.

“I love you, Dad,” I said, and Lisa hung up.

Her words mirrored my own thoughts. “He’s got too much faith in the system. Longtime unionist, probably. City? No, private business. Dockworkers, then. Thinks anything can be solved by going through official channels, doing things honestly.”

“I know,” I muttered through grit teeth.

Lisa paused, then cleared her throat. “Sorry. My power runs away like that sometimes.”

I thanked her for letting me use her phone, then left her room. Suddenly, I was feeling very tired, and there was a couch that needed an occupant.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is being cross-posted from Sufficient Velocity. 
> 
> https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-scourge-of-earth-worm-au.39057/


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